In conversations with writers, I find that many of them have full-time jobs and busy lives but they love writing enough to get up early in the morning or stay up late at night churning out pages of that novel in their heads. Others, like me, become writers after having another career or sometimes several careers. What we all have in common is a passion for writing and the optimism that we’ll find an agent who loves our work and sets us on the path to getting published.
To illustrate my point, I want to tell you a short story about Betty Neels, my writing heroine. One day by accident, Betty overheard a woman in her local library complaining about the lack of good romance novels. Betty, a retired nurse and a voracious reader with time on her hands, decided to fill the gap. She was fifty-nine years old when she published her first novel. The remarkable part of her story is that she went on to complete 134 romance novels, often writing four a year. She wrote until her death at the age of ninety-one in 2001. Her sweet, chaste books are still on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. Betty rocks!
I’m not advocating you read Betty’s novels or turn to romance writing unless it’s already your thing but her writing career inspires me, and I hope it will inspire you. At any stage of our lives, pursing our passion for words and getting them into print can be a reality. It happened to Betty – why not us, too?
Let’s get published!
Have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend. Happy July 4th!
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1 comment:
Hey, I love Betty! Throughout life we face changes and have to re-invent ourselves. It is never too late to become the person you want to be. This is an excellent post, Pat. Thanks for telling us about Betty.
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