By Bill Thompson
It’s never too late, as a wise person once said. At seventy-three, I’m proving it every day.
Fresh out of university and armed with a degree in journalism, I did a short stint as a writer for a metropolitan newspaper before joining my family’s insurance business. That led to a forty-year career as an entrepreneur -- building, buying and selling companies, and traveling worldwide promoting them.
Then life got in the way. My wife of forty-two years became terminally ill, I began working from home and had time to finish a novel I’d started decades earlier. After her death, I realized that writing was far more enjoyable than the business world, and I changed paths. In my mind, I wasn’t an author at that point. I was a guy who had written a couple of books. Not until my third title was released and a book series was firmly established did I embrace the concept that this was my newfound career.
Many aspiring authors lack two critical things – time and money. I was fortunate that neither was a problem when I started writing. First, I was “retired”, which meant I had as much time as I wanted to devote. Second, I had investment and retirement income sufficient to fund the inevitable losses as a writer builds a base of loyal readers.
Upon learning what I do, people sometimes conclude that writing is my hobby, that I have self-published “a” book and I have a hundred copies in my garage in case they want to buy a copy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Writing is my job, one that’s demanding and requires discipline and effort. At this point in my life, some friends think I should be having a ball being retired and just enjoy life. But I have seen too many people retire with nothing to do. They don’t golf or fish, go camping or RVing, and they end up binge-watching television or starting cocktail hour at four p.m. instead of five. (That part isn’t all bad, by the way. I’ve been known to adjust cocktail hour a little myself.)
Without purpose, one’s life can become a routine of remembering what used to be. The meetings in conference rooms, the hiring and firing and promoting, the thrill of landing a big account and the despair of losing one that meant a great deal to the company – these things which should be wistful memories sometimes turn into regrets. If a person dwells in the past and has no reason to hop out of bed each morning, life can become an endless tedium of days on a calendar. Think pandemic – I’ll admit there were weeks when I forgot what day it was because every day was exactly the same as the others. I don’t want my post-COVID life to be like that, because I have a purpose.
To tell the truth, I am having a ball. I am enjoying life – in normal times, my wife and I travel a lot, spend time with grandkids, go to concerts and the symphony and dine out with friends. I love that we do things together, even if it’s just going to The Home Depot or Sam’s.
I have plenty of time for personal things because writing is in my daily schedule. There’s time carved out for it, just as if I were going to a doctor’s appointment or getting a haircut. I try to start early because I’m a morning person. Most days I write from around 6:30 until 11, although that can easily be amended if something else interferes. I know how long it takes me to write a book and I know the estimated word count before I begin. With the daily word counts I get from my writing software, it’s easy to stay on target. If I’m short at the end of a day or a week, I just have to write more hours to make up the time.
Sheltering in place was a blessing for us authors. There was nothing outside the house to take my attention off writing, and so I wrote more. Likewise, readers with extra time on their hands bought more books. All things considered, it was the perfect vocation during a lockdown.
My career as a novelist has been immensely fulfilling and rewarding. Achievements in the business world are exciting, but the reviews I get on Amazon and Goodreads are something truly special. When people say they stayed up late to finish my book, or they love the words I write – that’s instant gratification at its finest. My nineteen books have won twenty-three awards so far, twelve of them gold medals, which makes all this even more worthwhile.
Some people might consider it exciting to dive into a new career after working years to reach retirement. Others would think it overwhelming, and there are yet others who would consider it sheer lunacy. But I learned that doing something you love sometimes can also create income, which is a perfect blend. It can give your senior years purpose and structure, allow you to work at your own pace, and become immensely satisfying, especially if your new vocation is something other people enjoy having you do.
Many people who learn I’m an author confess that they’ve always wanted to write a book. I tell them to step out and do it, although I know ninety-nine percent won’t. Being an independent author is hard work. It’s running a small business with just one employee – you. If you do well, you can branch out and hire assistants for the stuff you’d rather someone else do, but for a long time you’ll be doing it all yourself. That’s hard for writers, because we want to write. The drudgery of self-publishing involves tasks like social media, proofing draft after draft, picking cover art and registering copyrights. It’s not difficult once you learn it, but it takes time away from what authors would rather do – write books.
Then again, if this stuff was easy, everyone would do it. Like all things in life, doing something well requires a lot of time, trials and errors, and getting the occasional one-star review sandwiched in between (hopefully) lots of fours and fives.
Do you think you have it in you to be an author? There are several excellent books to help you understand the challenges you’ll face. There are great websites too. My advice is to take that first step. You’ll never know if you can write books people enjoy until you put one out there and find out.
BILL THOMPSON is an award-winning author of The Bayou Hauntings series, along with The Brian Sadler Series, The Crypt Trilogy, and The Outcasts. His latest installment in The Bayou Hauntings series, The Proctor Hall Horror, is available now. Learn more about Thompson and subscribe to his mailing list by visiting www.billthompsonbooks.com, or connect with the author on Facebook and Twitter.