The Need for Time

Becoming a writer later in life

My father died, unexpectedly, the fall I turned 48. In the months that followed, I created a bucket list. The places I wanted to visit. The books I wanted to read. The things I wanted to do. It was the first time I looked forward and considered the rest of my life. I wanted to know what it was I would regret not doing.

Writing was at the top of the list. In college, I had been an English major and written short stories; I planned to work in publishing and become a writer, but somehow I ended up getting an MBA, instead. I worked in finance and marketing and research. I was sure someday I would get back to writing. But between work and children and the stuff of life, I didn’t write much of anything in the 25 years that flew by after college. My father’s death made me realize that I didn’t want to let more time go by without trying.

Later that fall, I took my first writing class; the following summer, I attended a writing conference. It was a magical week: our workshop conversation spilled over into our meals. We talked about books and stories and craft. I found a world I didn’t know existed, one I wanted to join. I came home with a list of books to read, full of energy and enthusiasm. I could do this, I thought. I could work and parent and read and write. It would just take discipline: I simply needed to make writing a priority.

But I couldn’t make it stick. Over the following few years, I took an occasional workshop but struggled to write. A novel was put aside after a few chapters. Few people knew that I dreamed of becoming a writer. I certainly didn’t call myself one. I had read that if you’re a writer, you’re compelled to write. You can’t not write. That simply wasn’t the case for me: pretty much anything and everything came before writing. So I reasoned that it wasn’t meant to be. I tried to move on to other things.

Then my mother died, five years after my father. I had lived just a few blocks away from her for over ten years. I missed her, and I was lonely. My siblings and I started the long, horrible process of emptying and selling the house where my parents had lived since 1974. I needed something to look forward to; I needed something to fill the space her death had left behind. I applied to another summer program, this one run by the literary journal One Story. I submitted the only short story I had that felt somewhat complete.

I had started “The Remains” in the months after my father died. It’s the story of a woman whose body is found in her home long after her death; we learn about the woman through the other characters who knew her. The story idea came from an article I read in the newspaper, and I loved creating the character of the woman—there was something so gratifying in giving her life back to her, in making her come alive on the page. Now, I can clearly see how the story was drawing on my grief, on my irrational wish to see my father again.

The story resonated with the editor who ran my workshop, and he told me that he wanted to publish it in One Story. Six months later, “The Remains” became my first publication. I know the writing pundits say that publishing is not the be-all and end-all—and they’re right, it shouldn’t be—but for someone like me, who was unsure of herself and her work, that confirmation was key. The editors’ confidence in me and my work gave me the push I needed to apply to MFA programs, something I had thought about doing for years.

I was tempted by the low-residency programs: I knew the cohort would have a fair number of people just like me, people who were returning to or discovering writing at a later point in life. But I was also accepted into a program which offered me a fellowship to teach composition; this meant I could leave my job and attend the MFA full-time. This was a wonderful opportunity, and I accepted the offer. For the duration of the program, I could focus only on reading and writing; it would be at the center of my life. Going full-time also forced me to be public about my writing. I had to say it out loud now, at dinner parties, on my tax returns: I am a student. I am getting an MFA in fiction. I am learning how to be a writer.

The fall I started the program, I turned 55. My daughter was in her last year of high school; my son was a senior in college. And here I was, in school as well, with classmates who weren’t much older than my son. I was by far the oldest member of my class, and at the start, I kept to myself. I shared an office with another Laura, one of the youngest members of the cohort, a lovely and brilliant poet from Texas. She urged me to go to readings, to hang out after class. We’d leave workshop, and they would all head for the bar while I walked to the train. I wanted to go with them, but I felt as though I didn’t quite belong.

But Laura and others persisted, and by the end of the first year, I had become a regular at the dive bar near campus. I ended up loving my MFA experience, and some of my favorite memories are of the hours I spent sitting at those long tables, surrounded by poets and fiction writers, talking long into the night. We traded favorite books; we argued about craft; we talked through problems in our work. We shared our love for the words on the page. We became writers, together. Our differences only deepened the experience. I learned much from the classes I took and the faculty, but it was the community of writers that made the program so worthwhile. By the time I graduated, I thought of myself as a writer, and I was (and am!) thrilled to be part of the literary world.

Not everyone needs or wants to get an MFA. But finding community and believing in yourself as a writer? That’s important. That made a difference for me.

I also needed time. I don’t regret that I didn’t start writing years earlier. I know now that I would have failed if I had tried. There was a reason I never made room for my writing: I simply wasn’t ready. I hadn’t learned enough. I hadn’t read enough. And, most importantly, I hadn’t found the thing I needed to write about. There are young writers who are prescient, writers who are preternaturally wise about life’s ebbs and flows. But I needed to experience it. I needed to grieve the loss of my parents. I needed to raise my kids and send them on their way. Only then could I focus on my writing, only then could I figure out what it was I wanted to say.

I will turn 64 this fall, and my debut novel, Beyond That, the Sea, was published in March by Celadon Books. The novel follows two families over 35 years; it’s about love and grief and sadness and hope—it’s about life. It has been over fifteen years since my father died and ten years since my mother’s death—how I wish they could be here to see this. It is, of course, a bittersweet thing that it took their deaths for me to start writing. But I know they would be so glad I did.