My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.
Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?'
I was about 28-29 when I wrote my first story, and that was called 'The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.'
You can't be too old to be a writer, but you can definitely be too young!
Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it's not something where-if you missed it by age 19-you're finished. It's never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world-at any age. At least try.
I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.
I don't know how old I was when I started writing books. But, I was born in 1931, and I wrote my first book in 1961.
I can't seem to write young enough anymore.
