In a few months, I’ll be sixty-five years old. There are some days I feel it more than others. Those days are becoming more common. Among some of the old-age changes in me I’ve notice are I’m slower and less energetic than I once was. I’m also less bothered or concerned about things of little or no consequence. I wouldn’t call it apathy but more like ambivalence. Or maybe it’s more readily recognizing what’s consequential and what is not. The list of what is not grows larger. 

While the changes have affected all aspects of my life, the effect is most profound in my writing. I’ve written about being an older new writer, claiming literary agents are way too young. In that piece, I was trying to be humorous and not come off as resentful, although the post was born of resentfulness. My point was young agents have limited experience with adolescents, thus are also limited in their ability to appreciate efforts to push the envelope of middle grade and young adult writing, which is what I like to think I’m trying to do. I know, it sounds like sour grapes. That’s part of the humor. 

I’m hardly the first old writer or the first old person to take up writing. There are many older than me who are more productive and successful than I’ll ever be. I know, too, there are many who have been doing it for many years and have gotten better with age. Some of them—maybe many of them—have literary agents. More power to them; I’ve given up that search—not consequential, I decided.

Saying I’m a new writer, though, is a misnomer of sorts. I have written fiction for a long time. Only recently have I made it a primary pursuit and what I most look forward to doing. I have enough history, though, to compare who I was as a younger writer with who I am as an older one. In my younger days, I wrote poetry (which no one will ever see), and I wrote short stories. For comparison sakes, between the ages of twenty and sixty, I wrote thirty short stories or give take a few. I never got beyond the third or fourth draft for any of them and none is publishable. They’re embarrassing to read. 

Since turning sixty, I’ve written four novel-length books, a handful of short stories, and a bunch of what I call creative shorts (like this one). These are my bona fides or why I can make the claims about writing while old, which are I’m slower, less energetic, and undisturbed by things that would have bother me in the past. All these changes, though, have made me a better writer today than I was, say, thirty or forty years ago.

I’m slower than I used to be, slower to translate thoughts into words, slower to be satisfied with what I’ve done. Thoughts need more time to percolate. Writing needs more time to be mulled over. Maybe my mind’s filters are clogged with too many experiences or thoughts? Or maybe I’m more purposeful? More discerning? Or maybe I’m just less sure of myself? I’m fine with it being for any of these reasons or any combination of them. When it comes to writing, though, I wish the slowing of the translation of thought to words had occurred earlier in my life. It would have saved me from saying and writing a lot of embarrassing and useless stuff. 

Regardless of when it started, the slowdown has had two benefits. First, by the time I’m ready to make my thoughts public, I’ve given them more consideration and, thus, I’m more invested in them. This helps with revising and editing—what I’m saying is more important than it ever was, and more than ever I want to get it right. 

I’m also more vested in my thoughts. That’s the second benefit. Nothing I put down is a fly-by-night-gee-it-sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-first thought. The increased percolating time often means some thoughts never see the light of day. It also means that those that do have been worked over enough that I see them as worthy of being shared.

Being less energetic is, in part, responsible for the slowdown of my thinking process. I’m not in a hurry anymore because, well, what’s the point? Having less energy frees me from competing with others or getting something wrong or having to please anyone. I don’t have the energy to keep up or to prove myself. Some may see this as giving up, but I see it as moving beyond some of my worst instincts. In the past, I probably wasted a lot energy worrying about what I was saying, writing, and doing and their effect on others, whereas now, I don’t have the energy to waste on those worries.

The third old-age change may be the most important. With old age, I have nothing to prove. I’m neither an up and coming writer nor a failed one. Because I’m 64 and have accomplished a modicum of professional success, I don’t need to publish. I do need to write though. Recognizing this distinction was a long time coming. Writing is consequential—it’s necessary and vital to my identify. Publishing is not. I’ve published enough academic stuff to recognize the value of publishing as overrated. What’s valuable is the doing, the process of creating the research article, short story, novel, or whatever. And with writing while old what matters is I’m doing what I want, slowly, at my own pace, and with no concern of what the outcome might be. 

I’m newly old (age-wise), and I’m a newish fiction writer. The fact that I’ve moved into both identities at about the same time has been a boon of sorts to my productivity. The verdict is still out on my creativity.