I work with authors who have retired from careers. Writing can be something like teaching yoga, I like to think. Far fewer people start out teaching yoga than finish up life sharing that magic in classes. We grow into some kinds of pursuits as we get older. It’s worthy work at any age to find something that challenges us to discover purpose as well as share meaning. Like yoga, being an author promises both.
It takes practice to master anything, though, and writing is nothing but practice. The Dean of UT’s Drama Department told me to try writing because “It’s nothing but rehearsals.” He wasn’t quite on the mark there. Acting is nothing but performance, while writing can be everything that drives storytelling — on stage, on camera, and on the page.
Those broad powers make writing something people move toward as they approach and then embrace retirement. A retirement vocation might be leading a volunteer organization, or starting an Etsy craft business, or even mounting a pro pickleball league tournament. Or you could write a novel, the one you meant to start for years. Don’t sell yourself short while you take on that new vocation. There’s a lot to practice.
First you practice your writing by revising it, first on your own, then with allies, and finally with a coach or an editor. You enhance your summary and motivation skills by presenting the book for others to study and enjoy. You then polish your publishing skills, even if your publishing only goes as far as finding a company to turn that polished story into a book and sell it.
This changes things
If like nearly all new authors, you publish your book without a company, you don’t want to sell yourself short on that score. You invest to put a book into the hands of an agent or the laps of the world’s readers. A simple $25 monthly subscription to Publishers Marketplace delivers news about agents who signed authors to deals. Even in retirement, an author should be ready to invest $25 a month to learn who’s signing new writers.
Without that willingness to invest, there’s not much more than scratching an itch to be had from retirement writing. You can get a book with pages and glue and a cover by purchasing crucial help. Like buying better scuba gear or the $170 shoes for the pickleball court, you play a better game when investing in your retirement writing career. You need to be better to be heard.
Some people think that retirement is about receding from life, turning down the noise and heading inward to rest and retreat from challenge. They can become authors who often retire from writing, because it falls short of making a difference, giving them purpose, revealing meaning from life.
It’s more fun to retire into writing with the goal of becoming an author. The difference lies in the end result. I call what I’ve been doing in literature author-publishing, because the author is all about a book, not only the expression like an actor on the lip of the stage. A book has staying power and can deliver a legacy, once it’s nurtured like a child.
When your circumstances and fortunes deliver the extra time of retirement, consider your genuine wealth. You can retire at any age, of course. The tech business created millionaires and moguls who tied off their lives before 40. Then they adopted their retirement careers. Writing as an author can be that career, the one that finally gives you some purpose and provides a pipeline for meaning that you’ll share with the world.
