Why I Started A New Writing Gig At 80 Years Old

I decided to show all those naysayers.

Phone call between author and daughter. c. May, 2019.

Agenda: Joint checking account is overdrawn again.

Daughter: You know my name is on the account, don’t you? If it’s overdrawn it affects my credit score, too.

Me: Overdrawn?

Daughter: Seriously? You still aren’t reading your bank statements?

Me: I’ve been busy. I have this new idea.

Daughter: Here we go again. Another new idea. What is it this time?

Me: I’m going to write for Medium.com. I read about this woman who makes $5,000 a month. If she can, why can’t I?

Daughter: Please, Mom. Will you just go watch some cat videos? That’s not for you.

So that’s how I got started on Medium. More or less. I’m using my daughter as the foil because she doesn’t read my articles and the friends who actually laughed at me when I told them my bright idea to write for Medium might.

The truth is, I have a stubborn streak down my back that almost reaches into China. I’m a sucker for reverse psychology. You want to see me do something?

Tell me I can’t.

A classic example was when I got all hot and bothered to do a marathon, back in my late fifties. A woman at work had signed up with the Leukemia Society to walk for 26.2 miles and raise money in honor of her brother. He had just been diagnosed.

My brother had passed away of lymphoma, one of the diseases the marathons support with research money. I’d always wanted to do a marathon and so I said, sign me up.

As an afterthought, I said, “How many days.”

“Days for what?” she said.

“How many days do have to walk the 26 miles?”

She gave me a blank look and said, “One.”

Oh. Fuck me,I thought, but the whole section was watching and I couldn’t back down.

On my way back to my desk, a co-worker who was also my age, said (and this is a direct quote), “You can’t do a marathon at your age.”

I was angry, embarrassed, and my rebellious streak came roaring to the forefront. I smiled sweetly but said to myself, “Oh yeah? Watch me.”

Six months later, I hobbled across the finish line at the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt County. I wasn’t the last person to do 26.2 miles. I think there were three suckers behind me, but I did it.

So basically, that’s why I’m writing on Medium at my age. I’m hustling for the money for sure. But I also have face to save.

Or, maybe it’s the other way around. Nobody tells me I can’t do something.

So what’s it like, hustling your work when the world expects you to rock a rocking chair?

To me, it’s another day at the office. I’ve been writing for almost 50 years. I started my first book when I was 32 years old, not really believing anything would come of it. I was a secretary with big ideas, but for what I couldn’t say. I taught cooking at night for fun, though I was passionate about food.

The shocker came when several publishers made an offer on the proposal we wrote, and then l I realized the power of having a Stanford cardiologist as a co-author. Yeah, you can bet that opened doors, but the bigger discovery was that my first day actually writing the book showed me that writing was my reason for being.

One way or another, I’ve been plying that trade ever since.

So it’s no surprise to me that I’m writing on Medium. I need to earn my daily bread, just like many folks here, though I wasn’t as confident as I sounded to my friends that I’d make a go of it. Statistically speaking, it’s uphill for everyone. Only 50% of us earn anything and a bare 7–8% make over $100 a month.

But I came out swinging, it seems. I’ve been earning steadily and finding a readership from the get-go.

But this isn’t about my secrets to curation or breaking the earnings ceiling. I think I’ve done something a bit more fun, at least according to some comments I’ve received. I’m the reason some jaws started dropping around here because people weren’t expecting a little old lady to join the pack. Not that I’m the only senior on the platform. I direct your attention to Ramona Grigg, for example, who’s been rocking it long before I got here and has celebrated more birthdays than I have.

But we’re definitely in the minority, and that’s what’s fun, breaking stereotypes about what’s possible after a certain age, and proving there’s even life after AARP.

And we’re here to tell you, folks, that a lot of fun begins at 65 and 70. For myself, some of you might be tired of hearing my story, that I started publishing books on Amazon’s Kindle at age 72, five weeks after my open heart surgery when I could only sit at the computer for 30 minutes at a time.

I’m now working on my 5th and 6th novels in my latest series, supernatural suspense featuring ghostbusters Luke and Jake Lyte and their financial advisor cum white witch mother. I hope to publish my 60th title in 2020, and I’m writing an article a day on Medium. Since I’ve hung my shingle here, I’ve also had writers hire me as an editor, which is another hat I wear.

So if I’m not boasting about my experience, what am I going on about? The two women who lured me onto this platform with their success and ambition, Shaunta Grimes and Shannon Ashley are so far ahead of me in their accomplishments. I doubt I’ll ever catch up. But check out my age, people. If I can have my little success at my age, plus having so much fun doing the thing I love most, writing my heart out every day (thank the powers that be for modern medicine that has kept it in fine shape all these years), then take a look at your fears and prejudices about aging.

Oh, your not an ageist? Come on, you can be honest with me. I used to feel a lurch in my stomach when I’d think about gray hair, wrinkles and those orthopedic shoes my mother wore. I knew early on arthritis was probably in my future, and I’d read the statistics about all the bad things that happen to the body over fifty.

But then it occurred to me one day, maybe around age 57 when I was doing that marathon, having collected more money than required for my brother who didn’t even make it to retirement age, there’s no guarantee for anything in life. We’re afraid of the bad rap about aging, that after a certain number we can hang up our dreams. But I had a little brother who died of rheumatic fever at age five. So riddle me that.

My experience writing on Medium is no different from anyone else. I publish an article a day, occasionally two. I do the things I can to promote myself. I have days when I feel inspired and believe my writing soars, and days when I know it tanks. I’m no better at predicting curation or read success than anyone else.

I benefit from a daily writing practice of almost a quarter of a century that keeps me at my computer every morning. I know how to battle my writing demons, the doubt and swings in motivation, but I’m not the whiz at marketing some of my heroes are.

Medium proves to me that the only thing stopping me from going after my writing goals lives within me: my willingness on any given day to push through resistance to keep working, to convince myself I have what it takes and tell myself I can do this.

And frankly, by now, I know much of writing is a head game. Frankly, I’m better at 80 than I was at 30 when I’d quit at the drop of a hat.

So what is it like to be writing on Medium at 80 years old? Pretty much like anyone else, except maybe I get stiffer from sitting all day.

If you’re lurking, come join me and find out.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.