When should you start to write?
Today we’re at the end of my original list of the
five Ws of writing. We’ve already gone through:
Who – as in
Who are YOU as a writer?
What – for
What do you want to write?
This blog post is brought to you by When. When can mean a
couple of things, the best time of day to write or the best time of your life to
start writing. Let’s start with the time of day, shall we?
Some writers swear they are the most creative early in
the morning. In order to be at their best, they start the day by doing Morning
Pages as per Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. Julia describes
Morning Pages as “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.”
(The Artists Way, page 10.) A lot of writers I know use this time to clear
the noisy thoughts from their minds so they can focus on the task ahead. Their
creative writing. Some writers even find ideas come from this flow of consciousness,
sometimes while they sip their morning coffee or tea.
For me personally, I used to get up before I awoke
my kids for school when they were younger and was happy even when I only had
time to write a page or two out on my back porch. Now, I’m able to carve out
time in the morning before my full-time job since my kids are much older. At
least a couple days per week, I will use my half hour lunch break to write as
well and like to keep a couple evenings open to create as well.
Recently someone on social media asked how old you
have to be to become a writer. That created a whole new conversation and
received a lot of answers. Some not so nice as people are bound to be online.
It did prompt me to do a little digging.
I’ve been a storyteller and writer since I was young
and still have handwritten stories and poems from when I was a teenager when my
first two poems were published. I was about 15 years old.
There are no real age limits to writing or even being
published. The youngest person I discovered online was Dorothy Straight who
wrote her books at age 4 and was published her book “How the World Began”
at age 6 in 1964. The oldest was Jim Downing who published “The Other Side
of Infamy” in 2016 at the age of 102!
A few of the more famous authors published at
various ages are:
· Age 21 – Victor Hugo and Mary Shelley
(Frankenstein)
· Age 22 – Margaret Atwood and Ray
Bradbury
· Age 24 – Ernest Hemingway and
Jack London
· Age 28 – Jack Kerouac
· Age 30 – Agatha Christie and Mark
Twain. It is also interesting to note Stephen King had published Carrie,
Salem’s Lot, and The Shining all before the age of 30.
· Age 41 – Maya Angelou
· Age 50 – Bram Stoker (Dracula)
· Age 57 – Anna Sewell (Black
Beauty)
· Age 66 – Frank McCourt (Angela’s
Ashes)
I belong to a writing group and love that our ages
range from 25 to mid-eighties. Some are published, some have been working on
the same books for many years, and some just attend to write and learn. We all
have that one common love though: Writing. It has no age limit, education, or socio-economic
limits.
All you need is a pen and paper to get started…
Diane
Bator
Author
of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries and Glitter Bay Mysteries
Mom of
3 boys and 2 cats and a mouse who is too smart for mousetraps...
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