Guest post written by Original Twin author Paula Gleeson
Paula writes mysteries and thrillers for all ages, usually with multiple twists and complicated females at the helm. She is an award-winning filmmaker and nominated non-fiction writer. She lives just outside of Melbourne, Australia and is often found in her pj’s, drinking tea (wine), and watching horror movies snuggled between her doggo and a big cheese pizza. Her debut thriller, ORIGINAL TWIN, releases 1 June 2024. Find her online at paulagleeson.com
If I don’t get a book deal by the age of thirty, it’s all over.
If I don’t get my film made by the time I’m thirty-five, I’m giving up.
If I’m forty and haven’t made it as an actor, I’m done.
Put up your hand if you’ve ever used age as a goal post to success. Yeah, me too.
It’s an obvious marker to gauge if you are doing well or failing miserably, according to just about every message we see around us. If you don’t make those “Thirty Under Thirty” lists then you may as well throw in the towel of life, right?
Obviously, wrong. So very wrong. And it really is time we changed the narrative of only being successful before you hit a certain age.
I should know given I am debuting as a traditionally published author at the age of fifty (did that sound old to you? It does to me too. Let’s move on shall we).
If anyone had told my nine-year-old self it would take me another four decades to be the writer I always hoped to be, I’m sure I would have given up there and then. FOUR DECADES. Yelp. No wonder I’m exhausted.
So why did it take me so long? Well, for one, I didn’t believe in myself as a writer and, two, I had way more easier professions to try my hand at first—because acting and film/TV are totes easy to get into. Clearly, I jest.
At the age of nineteen, I moved from the public-service-driven capital of Australia—Canberra (nope, not Sydney) to the arts hub city of Melbourne. It was here I was going to make it as an actress. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.
Instead, I discovered I was much better behind the camera and learned the ways of being a producer. Spoiler alert: I was a natural. For the next twenty plus years, I would work in the film/TV industry in various capacities from production manager to 1st AD, to director, to making delicious muffins for craft services.
Hmm. Notice I didn’t say scriptwriter. While I did dabble in writing as part of the job, I never once considered I was good enough to write seriously. That. Was. For. Other. People.
Production and set life is awesome, but it’s also an incredibly demanding job. I knew I was burning out and didn’t have many more years left in me.
Enter: writing.
Sounds fine, right? I’ll sit down and bash out some words like I did when I was nine. Man-eating hamburgers, anyone? Only, there was a tiny little problem: I didn’t know the first thing about publishing.
For many decades, I’d been working my way up and learning the incredibly complex and layered film/TV industry, starting when things were still shot on film. Did I really want to pivot to a whole other professional as I was coming into my mid-forties and already had a perfectly ample career? *Whispers* I didn’t. I was exhausted, remember?
Starting to burn out on my early career but also fearful of relearning a brand new one was definitely a choice. So I did that thing, you know the one: if I don’t make it by the time I’m (insert age here) I’ll just give up. This time I was older and wiser (haha, I’m hilarious) and decided to insert the age of a hundred as my goal post. That felt achievable.
So whilst doing ridiculous hours in production, I also started writing my first book. It was memoir style on filming documentaries in conflict countries. I did all the wrong things like beginning the book waking up and just generally writing something that should have stayed in my diary, but I did it. I wrote a book.
I had no idea what to do with my manuscript and when I did get it into the right people’s hands, I was told that whilst I could write, I was best to start with fiction as it was easier to place in the market. (I honestly wasn’t listening after the feedback of “I could write” and may or may not have made that into a t-shirt.)
All the while, I dreamed of living in my pyjamas, drinking tea, and reading books full time and then the pandemic said, “Hi, here I am!” and like many people, I had to down tools on my paying job and consider how I was going to cover the bills.
Enter, taking my writing seriously. Not as a hobby, but as a full-blown career. Age was a bonus here as I didn’t have time to muck around. I have done other blogs on how I got an agent and a publishing deal, but in summation it was really bloody hard and I thought of giving up more times than I can count. I tried to navigate the publishing industry in Australia and soon realised that I would have to learn the US/UK literary world as well if I was going to make it. I got a US agent, lost that agent. Wrote and rewrote a total of five full manuscripts across the adult, young adult, and middle grade space before finally landing my current agent (shout out to Gwen Beal at UTA) and then going out to editors.
It. Was. Happening. I was about to hoodwink the world into thinking I was now a writer. And after submitting two of my manuscripts to publishing houses, I got a deal! A two-book deal at that—my debut thriller ORIGINAL TWIN comes out on the 1st of June.
Holy cheese pizza, I had done it!
At the fabulous age of fifty, I had fulfilled my lifelong dream of being a published author with my name on the cover of an honest-to-goodness-book. It had taken me decades to get here, lots of hard work, lots of rejections, and a shit ton of fortitude.
I can’t even imagine navigating this any earlier than I am, if I’m honest. Publishing, just like the film/TV world, is ruthless, difficult, frustrating, and only come wearing your thick skin. By the time I got here, I was already well and truly calloused by production and dealing with rejections was something I had sampled many times. I’m also much better at advocating for myself now and, in publishing, you need that as an accessory to go with your thick skin.
What was new, is navigating a relatively young space. Being of a certain age is openly discussed as something to fear and, for the first time, I had to seriously consider my age as a potential barrier. I was suddenly reticent to ever disclose my age for fear of being ostracised or not be “cool” anymore (heaven forbid).
By keeping quiet, I knew I was contributing to societies shame of aging and that didn’t sit well with me. I totally get that being fifty sounds old, it does to me too. Trust me. Yet, I don’t feel old, and I keep waiting for the day I’ll actually feel like an adult.
What I am grateful for is that I never gave myself an unrealistic age timeline or I certainly wouldn’t have hit it. I never got on a “Thirty under Thirty” list, but neither did so many authors who debuted after they were fifty. If they too had given up by a certain age we never would have such masterpieces as Dracula, Black Beauty, The Big Sleep etc …
I’m not saying my books are going to be masterpieces, but you never know, I may just become someone’s favourite author and that would never have happened if I’d given up on myself and said life only matters before a certain age.
All I know is that I am exactly where I am meant to be.
Age be damned.
