Those are the words that popped into my email inbox last week.  If that isn’t an omen I don’t know what is.  See, I came into this writing thing a bit earlier than some but much later than most.  And to make matters worse, one year before deciding to write romance, I went back to college.  Not the best timing in the world, but in my life that’s pretty typical.

So in 2007 I really threw myself into this writing thing.  Joined RWA National and my local chapter.  Enrolled in some ecourses and attended some workshops.  Attended my first conference, entered my first contest and started blogging.  After all that, I should at least have a rough first draft, right?  Wrong.

While I was spending a great deal of time and money on the craft of writing, the writing went to the back burner.  But I’ve finally given myself permission not to feel guilty about that.  You see, life is messy.  And random.  And unpredictable.  But most of all, if we’re lucky, life is long and doing things in a hurry isn’t always the answer.

It’s not that I want to publish my first book after 50, but publishing my first book after 40 (which is much closer than I’d like) is not the end of the world.  Right now, I’m taking one day at a time, making some of the best friends I’ll ever have, and writing a story that makes me smile, albeit slowly.  Right now, that’s enough.

Did you come to writing a bit late?  Do you feel pressure to publish right away or are you giving yourself a chance to enjoy the ride?  How have you fit writing into your life and still managed to have a life?  Have you set a “getting published” deadline for yourself?

Oh, and here’s a little tidbit from the article for inspiration…

“And take inspiration from the Bangladeshi writer Nirad Chaudhuri. His first book, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, was published in 1951, when he was 54 years old. Its sequel hit the market in 1988, when he was 90. And his final book, Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, was published in 1997—when he was 100.”