Just a Bit More Conversation about What Age Brings to Writing . . .

This is a new category of Blog Conversation posts… 

Not on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday…

Something I wondered how I’d handle and now am doing…

A reader has left a comment on a Conversation that we’d left behind—What Age Brings to Writing, with two posts on August 6th and 8th…

For any new readers, if a conversation receives no comments, I move on to a new conversation…

So here we are, on a Thursday, stepping back to record a valuable comment on the August 8th post about What Age Brings to Writing ( it’s a bit humbling for me that Sarah addresses me directly in her comment…) :

“Hello there. Interesting (and frankly encouraging) that you didn’t start writing until your late fifties. I often think I’m on the back foot getting going in my late thirties but clearly there’s plenty of time! For me, I think the things age bring to writing can sometimes be a bit of a barrier. All the books I’ve read, all the things I want to do with my writing, I think sometimes the over-awareness of these things can inhibit my writing, and I imagine a younger me might have been far less concerned about what they were putting on the page. Saying that, it might have made me a quicker writer, but not necessarily a better one. Not that I consider myself to be of a great age, but I do think that the knowledge of change being a perpetual thing in life, the exposure to so many other’s ideas in the last ten years… that has to have an impact on what I write. This topic really made me stop and think, thank you. Also wanted to say thanks for your continuing support on my blog, really appreciate that you are sharing my work with the world. Hope to do the same for you! Thanks again, Sarah”

Just want to reiterate my humble near-astonishment at Sarah’s direct engagement with me in her comment—I appreciate it; but, it’s something that hasn’t happened very often on this blog…

Now, two excerpts from that comment with my responses:

“…the things age bring to writing can sometimes be a bit of a barrier.”

Amen, especially if the writer is persistent in trying to fit into some media-induced “right way”…

“I do think that the knowledge of change being a perpetual thing in life, the exposure to so many other’s ideas in the last ten years… that has to have an impact on what I write.”

Absolutely—an attitude of which every writer needs to remain aware—such awareness often being a pool of writerly resources…

Also, Sarah’s noting of my support of her blog could fit into a few other conversations we’ve had here :-)

So let me be as direct—Thank You, Sarah, for contributing to our conversation…
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If you don’t see a way to comment, try the link at the upper right of this post…
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→ Our Blog Conversations are on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—the rest of the week, I share valuable posts from other blogs…
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For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com

More Conversation about What Age Brings to Writing . . .

Our last conversation post was on Monday, August 6th… 

It was unique in our full series of conversations since it began at the behest of a reader’s comment…

I’d been the one to begin the new topics: yet, this conversation began in the comments, not out here…

So, no matter what we’re talking about, in any post here, if you bring up a topic (in the realms of Reading, Writing, and Publishing), I’ll start a conversation about it… :-)

Now…

To continue the conversation of “What Age Brings to Writing”—three experienced writers…

First, an author from Germany:

“My first thought was “experience”; but then, I hesitated.

“Experience, yes, but young authors also have experience. And even people who worked at the same time with the same kind of people have different memories and experiences.

“In the late 1990s, I taught German to Russian speaking migrants. Now my students mostly speak Arabic. There are differences, but there are also similarities. When I discuss students with other teachers who are my age, have worked with Russian migrants and work now with Syrian migrants, it seems as if they see the 1990s as the golden Age of teaching, with educated, intelligent, interested, hard working, open minded students, whereas students now are passive, uneducated and biased. Even when we talk about the same person, the impressions are totally different.

“So – experience?

“Looking back at the discussions over the last years I came to the conclusions that, as a writer, I have a different look at my surroundings and at my students. I see more facets to them – which doesn’t always help teaching, especially when a student has very many facets to consider (or to overlook – as a kind of self-defence by filtering out).
Meeting and getting to know people on the other hand helps me when I create characters. So experience comes into my writing, my personal angle of looking at the world.”

Now, an author from Australia:

“I believe that my ability to write a paragraph has changed little since I was quite young. However I think/hope that my ability to THINK has changed. Hopefully, I see more layers and more paradoxes where once I just skimmed the surface of life and wrote accordingly :-)  “

And, an author from Canada:

“With age comes experience – a precious commodity. :-)  “

Three quite different responses to what age brings to writing; yet, they certainly have at least one similarity—age brings More to writing—more facets, more layers, more experience…

In my own case, I didn’t even become a writer until my very late 50s; though, there was that poem at 13…

So, all I have to ponder about what “age” brings to my writing are the profoundly subtle changes in my last bit-more-than-a-decade—years that can seem so long and also as brief as a breath………

Here’s hoping you’d like to add your response to this topic :-)
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If you don’t see a way to comment, try the link at the upper right of this post…
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For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com

Blog Conversation about What Age Brings to Writing . . .

 The last conversation here was about blog conversations themselves—a way to encourage folks to offer their ideas about what we could discuss…

If you’d like to add your ideas, check out Blog Conversation about Blog Conversations . . .

The most cool thing about having “what age brings to writing” as an offered topic is that two authors actually began the conversation in the comments of that last post:

“What a great question and very apt as I nearly stopped reading a novel I got out of the library because it was written in a colloquial style by a young person who obviously knew about the world of drug taking and it was so far from my experiences and included language that I would never write that I almost dismissed it as rubbish. Then I thought I’d try to get in the mind of the character and I carried on reading. Surprisingly I am enjoying the story as an insight into a different world!

“I wonder what kind of book the author will write when she’s my age?”

Then, another author said:

“Interesting re-framing…

“I started novel writing late. My first book has a mythical setting, though the language of my young protagonist is neutral – same in the sequel, which crosses the twentieth century into an imagined future.”

Then, the first author gives a short case study:

“Examples of two different writing styles:

“1. Young: ‘She turned the volume up on the telly as I got my fork and put a little bit of every yummy thing on the plate all squooshed up on it until it was almost too big to go in my mouth.’ ( Someday Find Me by Nikki Cloke).

“2. Old: ‘Even the Christmas meal seemed too much—as if they had all changed their eating habits and couldn’t revert to the mountains of meat, the Yorkshire puddings and the generous helpings of vegetables and roast potatoes.’ ( The Third Lane by Julie C Round)

“I suppose I should have found a classic for comparison but my book was handy!”

So…

Two things…

If you want to share some ideas about what we can discuss here (within the broad topics of Reading, Writing, and Publishing…), just hop over here <— and leave your comment…

And…

If you want to continue the conversation about “What Age Brings to Writing“, leave your comment below this post :-)

All it takes is one comment to make this discussion continue………
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If you don’t see a way to comment, try the link at the upper right of this post…
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For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com