The answer to this question is that there is no age at which you become too old to become a writer. Some people have felt a desire to write from the time they are young. Others may be focused or interested in other things until later in life. There are also people who would like to try their hands at writing but keep putting it off because of other obligations they have in life.
A writer who ‘takes up the pen’ later in life may have lacked the courage to do so earlier. Some people also develop writing as a career during retirement or when the need arises to find a creative means for earning supplemental income. In any case, one can never really be too young or too old to start writing. Any young person who can form coherent thoughts and express them on paper can be a writer. And any older person who can do the same can also become a writer.
Famous authors who were older when they published their first books
You might be surprised to learn how many best-selling authors were beyond age 50 when they published their first book. For instance, Anna Sewell, author of the classic tale, Black Beauty, was 57 when she penned her novel. It went on to become one of the best-selling children’s stories of all time. However, Sewell had intended it for adults!
Karen Blixen wrote Out of Africa at age 52. Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when she started writing her Little House series, and she was 76 when she finished her final book. Lorna Page had reached the amazing age of 93 when she wrote her book,
A Dangerous Weakness.
Age and wisdom can aid the writing process
The main advantage of becoming a writer at an older age is that you have a lot of life experience from which to build your stories. Older writers have also typically achieved a level of maturity where they’re not focused on immediate gratification in life, and, therefore, they are willing to put time and effort into refining a manuscript.
When it comes to writing, age truly is only a number
As a person gets older, his or her mind and body experience various changes, which can sometimes impede the ability to do things that a person was accustomed to doing earlier in life. With writing, however, age is merely a number, provided the person in question is of sound mind.
The topics or ideas that an older writer chooses to nurture may differ from the things that he or she might have chosen to write about a few decades ago at a younger age. There is no reason, though, to squelch a desire to become a writer simply because a certain number of birthdays have passed. If you want to write, write. It is never too late to start.
