Adventures in Aging

I was going to call this post “Adventures in Writing,” but I started rambling and straying off the subject and before long lost the original point, which is what happens when you get older. Not OLD, older.

Over this past year, I have endured disquieting disadvantages to being seventy; ones I did not encounter in my sixties.

When you’re sixty, you’re likely still in work, or newly retired, making you both physically fit and mentally astute. But let on that you are in your seventies, and suddenly you are regarded as stooped and wizened and walking (if you can manage it) with a cane. I have found this to be the case when answering questionnaires or even talking face-to-face with healthcare professionals.

They begin as if you are a normal person, but mention the dreaded septuagenarian word and suddenly they are asking about mobility, loneliness, and if you can use the toilet unassisted. And this irks me, because I don’t look or feel much different than I did a decade ago—my hip still hurts, but no more and no less, my hair is a bit whiter, I have a few more “character lines” and I continue to promise myself that I will re-start the morning exercise routine I religiously followed in my fifties, any day now—and I’m still just as busy. Despite annual resolutions to pair things down a bit, I never manage it, which makes my chosen pursuits difficult to pursue.

And this is getting us closer to what I started to write about.

I have taken up a variety of activities over the years—SCUBA diving, Irish Dance, stand-up comedy, to name a few—but the two that I am sticking with, and remain determined to carry into my golden years, are writing and singing. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that they are the only things I have ever shown any talent for. They are also ageless hobbies: you can write until the Grim Scrivener comes to relieve you of your pen, and continue to improve yourself in the bargain (think PD James), and singing ability, although it sometimes diminishes with age (think Paul McCartney), can follow you into your nineties.

The trick is to hang on to what you have for as long as possible, and I believe I’m doing fairly well at that, as I’m currently in two choirs and sing two or three times a month in local Care Homes. The only niggle with the Care Homes is, I wonder if they keep asking me back because I’m really that good, or if they just like the fact that I don’t charge. To my way of thinking, giving it away for free allows the Homes to afford other entertainers who choose to do it for a living. Or, perhaps, I’m just being a schmuck.

Which brings us to writing.

Those of you reading this blog should know that, for the past decade, I have been writing a fantasy/adventure series for my grandsons called The Talisman, which I self-published in the spring of 2024 to absolutely no fanfare but which, inexplicably, has recently found a publisher.

The negotiations are continuing, and I am relieved report that this is a genuine publisher and not some vanity/hybrid model because they have not demanded money from me, but they have asked for changes.

Big changes. Changes that will take time. Which I do not have.

And this is what I originally planned to write about.

Having finished The Talisman, I was told by my also-a-writer-grandson that I needed to write a book for their sister who was not even born when I began their books. And so, I’m writing a book for her, in the same way I wrote the books for my grandsons, which was simply using their names. The protagonist in the current book bears no resemblance to my 10-year-old G-Daughter, her named character being a 26-year-old, ex-military woman living in a near-future dystopian society.

I expected to have it completed in four to six months, but I have been faffing about with it for well over a year now. And the reason for this is time: I don’t have enough of it. And that’s because, after finishing The Talisman, I gave myself a break and stopped getting up at five in the morning, and by the time I started The Exodus Connection, I had become accustomed to sleeping late—until 6AM.

After much angst and pondering, I realized this, but resisted the notion of restarting the habit (can you blame me?) until failed resolution after failed resolution finally convinced me that the only way I was going to finish The Exodus Connection (or manage the changes to The Talisman, or start my next project, or get my also-a-writer-grandson’s latest tome in shape) is to start getting up at five in the morning again.

It’s been ten days now, and the book is flowing once more, and I am rediscovering what an adventure writing can be, and how, sometimes, a character can take on a life of their own.

(After this final anecdote I’ll let you go.)

In The Roman Villa, as I have noted in earlier blogs, a nameless slave girl tasked with fetching a tray of drinks and then disappearing from the story refused to go away and eventually became, not only a central character in the novel, but the lynchpin holding the entire series together. Conversely, in The Exodus Connection, a character introduced early on is supposed to develop a major role and initiate a lesbian relationship with my G-Daughter’s character. However, this character refuses to move front-and-centre as required and barely registers in the plot at all. This is disappointing because I was looking forward to the lesbian sub-plot. But now that it’s slipped away from me, I have to admit I only wanted it in the novel for the shock value, so, perhaps leaving it out is a better idea.

Some adventures are best not written down.