Never Too Late – Joy Writing – Martin Scorsese thinks he is running out of time. “I’m old. I want to tell stories. There’s no more time,” he says in a FanWire interview article by Anushree Banarjee. He is right to an extent. Time is limited. But Imagination is not. Martin knows this.

Your Imagination is Wide Enough to Hold the World.  Another famous filmmaker, John Cassavetes, agrees. “No matter how old you are, if you keep the desire to be creative, you’re keeping the child alive.” This truth is timeless.

“Are You Still Writing?” Julia Cameron, author of It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again, gets that question often. “The truth is, I cannot imagine not writing,” she says. “I go from project to project, always frightened by the gap in between.” She fills those gaps with more writing.

Get Creative and Stay Creative. This applies not only to aging and/or the fear of it. Remaining creative is the remedy for every dry spell we encounter. When your well of creativity and motivation seems to have emptied out and you are terrified that it may never fill up again. What – in the name of all that matters to you as a writer – do you do then?

Get Back to the Page. Let your imagination fly. Dive in. A deep dive not a shallow one. Plunge into whatever you find there. Whatever!! Otherwise, if you are truly a writer, you are going to feel like you have lost a limb. You are going to feel like you are without access to the avenue that leads you to your truly full life. Never Too Late – Joy Writing 

Indulge Me While I Put My Practice Where My Preaching Is. I have not published a novel since 2017, just before I suffered a heart attack and underwent open heart surgery. As you can no doubt posit, lots of distracting stuff happened after that. And I stopped writing novels.

I Was Afraid I had Hit My Personal Wall. I questioned whether, with a headful of lifelong medications, I could manage sufficient focus to build a narrative. Could I create enough characters to populate a plot? Could I make them act and counteract and conflict with themselves and one another in a powerful and intriguing dance? Was it too late for me to do that?

Never Neglect the Noodling. All through those eight years I was picking away at a story possibility. Filling 5 by 8-inch cards. Taking notebook notes. Underlining relevant articles from everywhere. Scribbling unsatisfying pages. The saving secret was to write something. Anything.

Now I am Past Page Twenty of a New Novel. The first book in a new suspense series. I shuffle the notecards. I add to the notebook. I reread the relevant articles. I write satisfying pages. My writer’s voice tells me they are not just satisfying. They are good. My editor agrees.

A Writer Never Retires. We may take a vacay. Maybe even a long one. We come back again eventually. Why? Because of that lost limb thing. Because of feeling like our GPS is out of whack for finding our meant-to-be writer’s life route. Because around the next bend that right road is always there for us. Our creativity is always there for us. Our imagination is always there for us. Never Too Late – Joy Writing

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.  Alice Orr. http://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. Follow Alice’s Joy Writing blog at http://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice’s Latest Novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Experience Joy Reading. Available HERE.

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

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