Debuting at the Age of 66

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From Jane Friedman:

Anna Sewell sold her only novel, the classic Black Beauty, when she was 57 years old. She had worked on it for six years while confined to her bed due to ill-health. It wasn’t until after Laura Ingalls Wilder had celebrated her 65th birthday that the Little House series came to prominence. And teacher-turned-memoirist, Frank McCourt, won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Angela’s Ashes, at the age of 66.

When my debut novel, Lies That Blind, came out on October 19, I was two weeks short of my 67th birthday. Becoming a novelist has nothing to do with your age. Nor should you think that having invested your talent so far in one literary arena—as I did with nonfiction—that it’s impossible to shift gears. I’m proof positive you can do both.

In 2018 I left the United States, intending to retire in Malaysia, after a long career as a freelance journalist and the author or co-author of more than twenty mainstream published nonfiction books. Sensing that I wanted a simpler, less financially stressful life, I sold my house, my car, and all but a few personal belongings, and arrived on the island of Penang without ever having stepped foot in Southeast Asia before. My life as a writer, I’d convinced myself, would now take a back seat to reading all those books I never seemed to have time to devour, to learn the Malay language, and sample the delights of Penang’s world-famous cuisine.

But, as the Yiddish saying goes, “Man plans, God laughs.” Or, for the irreligious among you, perhaps I was just about to stumble my way through a series of fortuitous events.

Writers don’t know the word “retirement”

I’d already bought the domain name “My Year of Doing Sod All” (British vernacular for doing nothing), having suspected that it wouldn’t take long before I was desperate to get back to tapping on my keyboard. My intention had been to write a blog about the joys of loafing! But I never got round to making that site public; I soon realized that I’d never worked as a writer, I was a writer—all the way through to my marrow—and that writers never “retire.” Plus, I had long nurtured a writing dream that perhaps now I’d be able to fulfill.

As a lover of crime novels and thrillers, my first thought was to try my hand at plotting a Penang-based murder mystery. (Think: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint, but featuring the peculiarities of Penang, rather than Kuala Lumpur.) I tried to come up with a compelling idea, but nothing gelled. Then one day, over coffee with a fellow writer and publisher, I admitted that I’d always wanted to write a novel before I died but couldn’t come up with anything that excited me.

Keith began to tell me the story of how Penang came to be possessed in the late 18th century by an agent of the East India Company (EIC) named Captain Francis Light. I was familiar with the basics: Penang was, at that time, part of the kingdom of Queda whose sultan was keen for the EIC to protect him militarily against his many regional enemies. The carrot that the sultan dangled was to allow the EIC to establish a settlement on Penang; the “Honourable Company” had been looking for a port further east than Madras where they might repair their ships traveling between India and Macau.

But the plan had gone horribly wrong. Yes, Francis Light had taken possession of Penang (rather cheekily christening it Prince of Wales Island in honour of King George III’s son, within days of setting foot there), and the island had become a thriving trading settlement not least because it imposed none of the tolls and taxes common to Queda’s ports. But by April 1791, frustrated that his demands for military protection had gone unheeded, the Malay sultan had amassed an armada of mercenaries and regional pirates to attack the tiny British stronghold, and take his island back. And by “tiny” I mean a garrison of 400 sepoys and EIC officers against an invasion force reputed to number over 20,000 men.

Even though I had made a career for myself as a nonfiction author, I knew enough about storytelling generally to recognize that here were the makings of an intriguing tale. I was reminded of Hilary Mantel’s quote in this Guardian article: “I began writing fiction when I discovered I wanted to be a historian.” I’d never adhered to the adage that you should write about what you know; as a nonfiction author and journalist I had always written about what I’d wanted to discover.

I believe that you will never compel a reader to turn the pages of your book—nonfiction or novel—unless you, as the author, love the process of writing more than almost anything else. Given a new lease of life, as far away from “retiring” as you can imagine, I spent the next two years doing as much research as I could about Francis Light, the early days of Penang, and what life was like in Malaya at that time.

But then my passion for this endeavour hit a wall. I’d tried to write a few early chapters making Light my protagonist, but nothing seemed to work. I guess I just didn’t like him all that much or couldn’t get into his head. I was starting to get dispirited, thinking I’d wasted my time, when I chanced upon an essay written by Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1758, “Of the Duty of a Journalist.” Having just read Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, I came up with the idea that my hero would be a similarly naïve, idealistic young man—a fledgling journalist—named Jim Lord, who maneuvers his way to becoming Francis Light’s assistant and chronicler. The further away I got from the themes of Lord Jim, as I played around with one draft after another, the more I felt inclined to change my protagonist’s name. He ends up in my novel as Jim Lloyd.

The value of lifelong learning

I’m tired of people perpetuating the myth that people over 50 are unwilling or unable to learn anything new. What rubbish! My early drafts were okay, but it soon became apparent that my thirty plus years’ experience as a nonfiction author had not prepared me adequately to write a novel. Already knowing that writing any book is like bringing up a child—it takes a village—I enrolled in online courses with titles ranging from Emotional Beats and Deep POV to Your First 15 Pages. I devoured Save the Cat; answered questions in What Would Your Character Do?; and listened to an audio seminar The Hero’s 2 Journeys, featuring those wonderful story consultants, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler. I also engaged three successive writing consultants, one of whom—having seen the outline of my “final” draft, nudged me to tear the whole thing apart. Which I did. For me, writing is never about the destination but how much I can learn from, and enjoy, the journey. 

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman