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You’re Not Too Old to Be a Writer

Or Anything Else, For That Matter

By Jason ProvencioPublished about a year ago 4 min read
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Whether you’re young or old, it’s never too late to excel in your writing. Or in anything else that you set your mind to. Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

As I’ve read a number of stories early on in 2023, I noticed a trend that seems to be prevalent on various writing sites.

People seem to have a number of reasons for not reaching their goals.

Hey, that’s ok. If 2022 wasn’t the best year for reaching your writing goals, don’t worry about it. Life happens. We get sick, gain or lose jobs, or sadly lose family members. Writing can easily be pushed to the back burner when we’re dealing with big life changes. Don’t let this bother you.

But don’t let anyone convince you that you’re too young or too old to succeed as a writer. Tell them to take that bullshit noise elsewhere.

Sadly, there are many people in this world who will try to tell you what you are or aren’t. What you should or shouldn’t do. They are what I call “Dream-Stealers”. And spoiler alert: What they think of you does not matter. Do not let them rent space in your head. Their opinions are worthless.

Why do they attempt to derail your progress? For whatever reason, they are insecure in who they are enough to try to define you on their terms. They will often try to discourage your dreams and will tell you that it’s stupid that you’re trying something new, or attempting to feed your soul through writing.

Don’t listen to your mother-in-law about your writing. What does she know, anyway? Image by Nina Garman from Pixabay

They are often the people closest to us. Our spouses and significant others, sadly. Sometimes they are extended family members, close friends, or even our children. The people that SHOULD have our backs the most often are the worst influences.

Fuck what they think.

I am fortunate to have the best Bride in the world. A year ago, I wanted to cut way back on the number of carpet cleaning jobs I was doing for $50-$60 an hour due to my lower back being a mess. I told Mai about writing opportunities and that while it may take a bit of time to build, I was confident that I could build a solid following and blow this up on a large scale.

She was all about it. She had my (bad) back, 100%. She was nothing but supportive and cheered me on. That made a world of difference in achieving my goals.

Even after I knocked over a glass of wine onto my laptop when cooking dinner. She gave me her new, better laptop she had recently gotten without a second thought. She ordered herself a new, cheaper one for taking notes during her counseling sessions. That meant so much.

I knew I had to succeed at writing. She believed in me. She supported this new passion of mine. She would support my goals and dreams because she’s just amazing.

She’s always been my biggest supporter, encourager, and fan. And vice-versa.

It was never the plan to start writing at age 47. I hadn’t given it any consideration up until that age. Sure, I enjoyed writing funny status updates for Facebook and Twitter. I knew I was a fairly smart fella. But writing for a living never came to mind until a year ago.

Once a close friend started talking about content writing and suggested that I start a blog to build a needed writing portfolio, it was on like Donkey Kong. I fell in love with blogging. Not so much with content writing. But I do appreciate that it’s another avenue of income for me.

I could lament and feel bad that I could have started writing 25 years ago. If I published 468 blogs in my first year, in theory, I could have had a library of at least 12,000 writing pieces by now. But I’m actually glad it’s taken this long to find my passion for writing.

I have far more wisdom than when I was in my early 20s. I’ve experienced so many more things in a quarter century on this oddly wonderful planet. I may not have had much to write about at a young age and could have burned out long ago with it.

I think things happen in life for a reason. I don’t believe that everything is completely random and unrelated. I feel that we often reach important points in life in exactly the right timing. I certainly feel this way about my writing.

Don’t let anyone else tell you that you’re too young, too old, too busy, not smart enough, or that you’re too boring to be a writer. Don’t accept anyone’s limitations or definitions of what you are

And certainly don’t accept any bullshit negativity from yourself. You’re too talented to second-guess yourself. &:^)

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About the Creator

Jason Provencio

78x Top Writer on Medium. I love blogging about family, politics, relationships, humor, and writing. Read my blog here! &:^)

https://medium.com/@Jason-P/membership

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  • Jonipol Fortalizaabout a year ago

    It's another amazing piece of advice for would-be writers and writers who ride the wave of doubts for themselves.

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