The Second Act Author is my video series dedicated to helping writers in their “second act” — fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years or older — bring their writing to fruition, to market, and to an audience. Watch the video or, if you prefer, read the article adapted from the video content.
This episode of The Second Act Author is based, in part, on my Scribtotum article “Creative Writing is a Luxury?”
The world is not so good right now. People have terrible things happening to them, to their loved ones. The news is full of one atrocity after another. And you’re thinking, “How could I possibly imagine that writing a book, writing a short story, releasing a book out into the world… or heaven forbid, talking about it, promoting it, trying to get people to buy it… how could I possibly be so presumptuous as to think that’s more important than everything that’s going on right now?”
Maybe you feel a sort of shame that you have a work of art you’ve poured your soul into, and you want to promote it. You want to put it out into the world. Heck, maybe you just want to finish it, and you think, “You know, people are getting shot in the street. How could I possibly do that right now? How could I talk about or focus on my silly little story when these things are happening?”
Okay, so, the world is on fire.
But it’s okay to write your book. It’s okay to talk about the book you’ve just released. It’s okay to spend some of your time on your creative endeavors.
I promise.
Here’s why:
There will always be something awful happening in the world.
Somewhere out there, someone is dying needlessly; suffering needlessly. People in power are abusing people with less power… always, since we got together in groups of more than five until now, and well into the future.
Someone’s world is always going to be on fire.
And where do we turn when we need release from that? Where do we turn when we need to better understand the situation, either currently or retroactively?
We turn to things that people have written.
And yes, that includes fiction… including the craziest, wildest fiction.
All the stuff that seems like throwaway entertainment… whatever people might consider unserious literature? Well, that makes the world go round, my friends. We need art to not just give us a break from the 24-minute news cycle, but also to help us understand our fellow humans.
There will never be a time where things are perfect, where you can feel like you can fully focus on your creative works, so don’t wait for it.
You know, there’s an anecdote about C.S. Lewis teaching a class of young men while World War II was just getting cooking. And they all had the same question:
“How can we be here in this English literature class talking about writing when the world is on fire once again?”
And he pointed out to them that there will never be a good time. There will never be a perfect time. But the world needs your art.
And that’s still true today.
I believe, and I want you to believe, that whether you’re in the middle of your 90th book or just thinking of beginning your first, only you can tell that story.
I don’t care if it’s the most seemingly derivative thing out there. Only you have the perspective to tell that story as you would tell it.
If you don’t?
Your own unique perspective on what it means to be human will be unheard; lost; silenced.
Now, you might be thinking, “Who cares? It’s just my perspective; my interpretation of the same story that we’ve all heard before. Why should I care? Why does it matter?”
Well, that’s just it: You don’t know how what you write and polish and publish and sell, and yes, promote… you have no idea how that’s going to affect the people who eventually read it and experience it.
Your responsibility is to make sure that they do.
How they experience it, how their lives could be changed, or heck, how they might just have an easier afternoon… that’s up to them.
But it can’t happen unless you say, “You know what? The world is on fire, but what I’m doing matters. What I’m doing is part of the stream coming out of the fire hose to put that fire out… for now.”
Also, in your “second act,” over 50, 60, 70 or older? Look, there’s only so much time to be alive.
It might be that your life is just leveling off enough where you feel like you finally have the time. You finally have the energy that you can dedicate to this book you’ve been putting off for years or decades.
And it’s not hyperbole to say: you’re running out of time.
I know this. As I talk to you today, I’m ten months away from sixty. I have so much left to do, so many stories to tell. And I remind myself every single day: there is only so much time to be alive.
There’s going to be another terrible thing in the news tomorrow.
But every day that there’s another terrible thing in the news, and there isn’t a new story by me, by you, out there as well, is a day that we have denied others the opportunity to have it a little easier. To be changed in some way. Inspired, moved, or even… just to be distracted.
Your stories matter.
So! Don’t let the bastards get you down. Don’t let the fire burn so fiercely that it keeps you from the fire inside you to create, to make, to tell your stories.
The world needs what you do.
