Tell Me It Ain't So

"Old age is no such uncomfortable thing if one gives oneself up to it with a good grace, and don't drag it about to midnight dances and the public shows." ~Horace Walpole

I have a couple of writer friends who think they're being rejected because of their age. They don't go to conferences to meet with editors. They don't send pictures with their manuscripts. I wonder if they begin their query letters with:

Dear Editor, I'm eight-five years old and I have written ...

Surely not! But if they don't tell the editor or agent how old they are, then their writing style must. I wonder what my writing, my writer's voice, says about me. Can an editor tell by the way my characters speak that I'm from the South? That I'm Texan? That I'm fifty-something? Do my writing credits betray me?

I know agents and editors prefer writers who have a long career ahead of them. We writers want the same thing: editors who plan to stay with a publishing house long enough for us to get established, or at least until we do a rewrite.

And we want agents who believe in us. We don't care how old they are.

I don't want to think age plays a part in getting published. That's a real downer for me. I have friends who deserve to see their names on books. They're excellent writers, and they've written great stories. Completed novels! Doesn't that count for something?

Hey! They have several completed novels. I just don't understand . . . doesn't that count for something?


"I grow old learning something new every day." ~Solon (638-559 B.C.)