Can You Start A Writing Career At Over Fifty?

I caught sight of a headline in my feed about starting a writing career at fifty or over. The question asked was “Can you?” My answer is hell yeah, and way, way beyond. I started mine at sixty-six. I am not sure why there would be a question about that unless it was felt that some people might be ageist about the subject.

In my case, I pretty much had no choice in the matter. One minute I was living and working in the South of Spain as a full-time musician (guitar and piano) and part-time teacher of languages (Spanish and English) and the next I was paralysed from the waist down!

It was a lovely fresh summer evening and I was doing a solo open-air concert. After three songs I went to get up to stretch my legs and couldn’t. I was very firmly rooted to the low stool I was sitting on and had lost all power to propel myself upwards to a standing position.

I put my guitar down, placed my hands palm down on the sides of the stool to brace myself and pushed up with all my might. As I slowly began to rise I felt the most excruciating pain in all of my lower joints, from the hips down. OMG!

As I straightened myself up the pain dissipated and I took a walk around for five minutes. Then I sat back down to continue performing. Fifteen minutes later, again I went to get up and couldn’t.

This was about the time of COVID-19 and the country went into lockdown. That meant I couldn’t get the medical assistance I needed. When I did get to see a doctor she just wanted to get rid of me asap. She told me it was nothing more than old age and gave me a prescription for aspirin. Bloody fool of a woman.

Once more I went to see a doctor and he concurred it was age-related and gave me a prescription for Panadol, a very strong painkiller for terminally ill cancer patients. And still, the excruciating pain persisted.

To make matters worse, twice the Spanish police assaulted me for being out, even though it was allowed for my purposes. They each threatened me with a 600 euro fine if I did not go back home and stay there. The second one followed me and said if he saw me out again over the next few days he would arrest me. Another bloody fool who would not listen to me when I explained why I was out.

In the end, I left the country to travel to somewhere more medically knowledgeable and civilised, like Japan. What a difference. The Japanese put me through a whole raft of tests and diagnosed something called PMR/GCA. They immediately put me on steroids and within an hour the pain vanished never to come back.

The problem was that during the tests it was also discovered that I had had a silent heart attack and a mini stroke. What all of this meant was that my stay in Japan was going to be long-term. And the question in my mind was, what the hell am I going to do for a living?

I tried to get some teaching jobs, but I discovered that they prefer younger teachers these days. Music was out of the question as there is not the same demand for the music I play.

To stop me from going crazy whilst she was out at work, my lovely wife loaned me her Apple Mac. One of the first sights I visited was LinkedIn. It was there I saw mention of Medium for the very first time. That was it, the decision was made, I would become a writer working from home.

From that point on, I never looked back. I just poured out my life out onto the screen. And here I am four years later, Illumination Senior Editor and Top Writer earning a decent supplement to my paltry pension.

I now have eight of my own pubs on Medium, four on Substack and four writing websites of my own, one on Ghost and three on Beehiiv. In addition, in a very short period at the end of last year/beginning of next, I wrote and self-published 27 books of short stories and poetry.

I must confess, it is not my first time as a writer. Back in the eighties and nineties, I earned a great deal of money as a freelance copywriter. Enough to buy a half-million-pound house and a brand-new Jaguar XJ12. Hell, we even had a live-in nanny who we also took with us on holiday to help with our three lively young children. However, sadly that did not last and….it’s a long story, the details of which I will not bore you with.

So yes, you can start at fifty or over as a writer. It is not as if it’s hard work. Compared to driving forty-ton trucks and shitty manual labour jobs, it’s a breeze. Thankfully I got out of all of that nonsense by doing two university degrees. I know a lot of people say degrees aren’t everything and not all graduates are intelligent, but that is usually sour grapes from people who never got to uni. For me, it was the best thing I ever did, career-wise. Without it, I would never have become any sort of writer to start with.