u/Educational_Meat_753

I wrote my first real novel at 39. Not my first attempt, my first finished thing. Before that I had about fifteen years of abandoned drafts, half started outlines, notebooks full of ideas I never developed. I'd been telling myself I was "a writer" the whole time without producing the evidence to back it up.

What changed in my late thirties wasn't talent or time or some breakthrough. What changed was that I stopped waiting to feel ready. I'd spent my twenties and most of my thirties believing that someday I'd have the right circumstances. The right desk. The right amount of free time. The right level of life experience. The right confidence. None of it was ever going to arrive on its own, and at some point I just had to start writing badly, on a kitchen table, while exhausted, and trust that the work would teach me how to do the work.

I see a lot of younger writers on this sub who are terrified of being too late, and I see a lot of older writers who've quietly decided they missed their window. Both groups are wrong, and both groups are wrong in the same way. There is no window. Penelope Fitzgerald published her first novel at 58. Frank McCourt was 66 when Angela's Ashes came out. The only thing that disqualifies you from being a writer is not writing.

If you're in your forties or fifties or older and you're sitting on a book you've never let yourself start, this is the only permission slip you're going to get

I'd been working with this editor for a sample edit on the first three chapters of my novel. She came back to me after about two weeks and told me, very kindly but very directly, that she didn't think the book was ready for the kind of editing I'd hired her for, and she wasn't comfortable taking the rest of my money until I'd addressed some bigger structural issues.

I was devastated for about a day. Then I actually read her notes.

She'd identified something I hadn't been able to see in two years of working on this manuscript. My protagonist had no want. She had a situation, she had things happening to her, she had a personality and a voice, but she didn't actually want anything in a way that drove decisions. Every plot turn in my book was something happening to her rather than something she was reaching for, and once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

I spent the next three months rewriting the first half of the book from scratch with that single change in mind, and the difference is night and day. I don't know if it's good now, but it's a real book now, which it wasn't before.

I keep thinking about how easy it would have been for her to just take my money, do the line edit I'd asked for, and send me on my way with a polished version of a fundamentally broken book. The fact that she didn't is the single most generous thing anyone has done for my writing.

okay before you downvote or curse me pls read this, i've been on the writing subs for like two years and i'm just tired that every post is someone asking if their idea is original (it's not, nothing is and that's fine), someone announcing they finished a draft and getting 4 upvotes, or a comment war about prologues. nobody actually talks to anyone. you don't make friends, you just yell into a feed.

i want a smaller place. a discord where you start to recognize names, where someone notices if you go quiet for a week, where you can post "stuck on ch 12 send help" and an actual human responds.

not picky about genre. i write fantasy mostly but i want to be around all kinds of writers. just want it to feel like people. that's not too much to ask right

drop names if you got em pls

I work full time and i run a household AND I take care of people around me, and somewhere in between all of that i'm trying to keep writing.

nobody around me really gets it, my partner's supportive in a "that's nice babe" way but doesn't actually read anything and friends don't even pretend to care, them my family, they thinks it's a phase I should've grown out of.

I just want a writing community where I can talk to people who get it, get it what it means to be a writer, somewhere I can sneak in during lunch or after everyone's asleep and there's actual conversation happening

maybe share a paragraph, get real thoughts on it, do the same for someone else, talk about worldbuilding when my brain needs to escape the spreadsheet i've been staring at all day.

not looking for a server full of 22 year olds with eight hours a day to write (love that for them, just not my life) would be nice to find people who also write in stolen pockets of time and don't make you feel behind for it.

if you're in something like that, please drop the invite
and if you're a working adult who found your writing people somewhere, i'd love to hear how.

thanks

ok so before you hate me, read this, i work full time and i run a household AND I take care of people around me, and somewhere in between all of that i'm trying to keep writing.

nobody around me really gets it, my partner's supportive in a "that's nice babe" way but doesn't actually read anything and friends don't even pretend to care, them my family, they thinks it's a phase I should've grown out of.

I just want a writing community where I can talk to people who get it, get it what it means to be a writer, somewhere I can sneak in during lunch or after everyone's asleep and there's actual conversation happening

maybe share a paragraph, get real thoughts on it, do the same for someone else, talk about worldbuilding when my brain needs to escape the spreadsheet i've been staring at all day.

not looking for a server full of 22 year olds with eight hours a day to write (love that for them, just not my life) would be nice to find people who also write in stolen pockets of time and don't make you feel behind for it.

if you're in something like that, please drop the invite
and if you're a working adult who found your writing people somewhere, i'd love to hear how, idk posted this in a=community too

thanks

ok so before you hate me, read this, i work full time and i run a household AND I take care of people around me, and somewhere in between all of that i'm trying to keep writing.

nobody around me really gets it, my partner's supportive in a "that's nice babe" way but doesn't actually read anything and friends don't even pretend to care, them my family, they thinks it's a phase I should've grown out of.

I just want a writing community where I can talk to people who get it, get it what it means to be a writer, somewhere I can sneak in during lunch or after everyone's asleep and there's actual conversation happening

maybe share a paragraph, get real thoughts on it, do the same for someone else, talk about worldbuilding when my brain needs to escape the spreadsheet i've been staring at all day.

not looking for a server full of 22 year olds with eight hours a day to write (love that for them, just not my life) would be nice to find people who also write in stolen pockets of time and don't make you feel behind for it.

if you're in something like that, please drop the invite
and if you're a working adult who found your writing people somewhere, i'd love to hear how.

thanks

ok so before you hate me, read this, i work full time and i run a household AND I take care of people around me, and somewhere in between all of that i'm trying to keep writing.

nobody around me really gets it, my partner's supportive in a "that's nice babe" way but doesn't actually read anything and friends don't even pretend to care, them my family, they thinks it's a phase I should've grown out of.

I just want a writing community where I can talk to people who get it, get it what it means to be a writer, somewhere I can sneak in during lunch or after everyone's asleep and there's actual conversation happening

maybe share a paragraph, get real thoughts on it, do the same for someone else, talk about worldbuilding when my brain needs to escape the spreadsheet i've been staring at all day.

not looking for a server full of 22 year olds with eight hours a day to write (love that for them, just not my life) would be nice to find people who also write in stolen pockets of time and don't make you feel behind for it.

if you're in something like that, please drop the invite
and if you're a working adult who found your writing people somewhere, i'd love to hear how.

thanks

looking for a writing community/ discord server for real feedback and critique
where we can build stories, powers and characters

It’s fascinating when a group if writers collaborate to improve writing, there are few groups but they all lack consistency and got active members that care

looking for the best writing server out there