Aging Gracefully, or Not

I’ve never been one to worry about aging. I always thought I would just age gracefully, just letting the process happen naturally, sans a few boxes of hair color over the years. But recently, I’ve been feeling it more. My joints get stiff when the weather turns cold, I need a nap after a trip to town, it’s harder to get up from my seat at times, and I can’t seem to stay awake to write into the night, like I used to. I notice more wrinkles each time I glance in a mirror, and there’s considerably more gray in my hair. Maybe it’s because I just turned 60 that I notice the changes more now, or maybe it’s because I have been out of work for almost a year and I’m struggling to keep up on car payments, insurance, and basic necessities, but I’m having more and more trouble in dealing mentally and emotionally with the everyday stresses of life. Sometimes I feel like I cannot take anymore, but problems just keep coming at me. It has begun to effect my writing life, as well as the reality around me.

In the past, even when the rest of my life was falling apart, my writing was the one thing I had control of. I could keep it on track and moving forward. So when my Kickstarter camapign for Sarah didn’t fund, I tried not to take it too hard. I wasn’t done writing the book, which should have been finished in December, so I just pushed back my production schedule, setting Sarah for release in May instead of March, and I decided to add a May Kickstarter campaign for The D.I.Y. Author which had not been previously planned with my author services offered as some of the rewards. I reached out for the opportunity to have my own books, Delilah, Hidden Secrets, and The Rock Star & The Outlaw, available in audiobook with AI audio narrations on the spur of the moment, seeing a chance to possibly expand my audiences, and made all three of them $2.99 on Google Play during the entire month of March. I guess when I’ve made it through May, I’ll find out if these choices were solid decisions or acts of desperation, but I picked myself up by my bootstraps and carried on in either case.

My dream has always been to take my writing full time and not have to hold down the proverbial day job, but it is a slow climb to making enough from my work to do that. I haven’t given up on finding a day job, but lately I’ve been thinking that maybe my age is what is stopping me from arousing the interest of potential employers. I put in the time and work to earn two masters degrees, but I’m wondering if my efforts didn’t come too late in life. Does turning 60 and entering the world of senior discounts mean that I’m too old to be gainfully employed?

And it’s not like I haven’t been trying to use my writing skills to gain remote employment. I’ve put in more applications than I can count, some with over a hundred applicants, and most of them don’t even respond back to tell me to take a hike. I’ve thrown out my hook for editor and proofreader, as well as content writer and copywriter for countless companies without even a nibble. Maybe I’m using the wrong bait. Am I over educated?

I keep telling myself that something has to break soon, and I do have a couple of promising interviews scheduled even now, but as I approach the milestone of being unemployed for a year, I’m beginning to wonder. I find myself worrying more and more about what is around the next corner for me. The worry eats at me more than it did when I was younger. The depression weighs on me, making it feel like the next sunrise may not come. It makes it harder to focus on the part of my life that I’ve always maintained control of, and it’s more difficult to focus on putting words on the page.

I press on, putting in applications, interviewing, and writing my heart out with specific goals in mind. I had to push back the production schedule on Sarah and change my marketing plan for The D.I.Y. Author, but if I can meet my production goals for this year, it should be a pretty good year for WordCrafter Press. In addition to the above mentioned books, I’ll be releasing a poetry anthology, three books in the My Backyard Friends children’s series, and two different short fiction anthologies. I’m using that as something to look forward to and it motivates me to keep at it. I don’t know if this is what they call aging gracefully. Gracefully or not, guess I’ll just have to keep on going and see what happens.

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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