Ron and I meet many 50+ novelists when we teach at writers’ conferences. Writing fiction later in life is clearly a popular pursuit. One important reason why is the upside to being a late-blooming writer.
For starters, we have more stuff to write about than young novelists. Perhaps even more important, we’ve had the opportunity to read a lot more — which (if we’re lucky) translates into a more polished voice.
Older writers may have many more hours available to write each day — because kids are no longer little and family issues have become simpler to deal with. We’re also likely to have more resources, for example:
- Writing space at home
- Time and money to attend writers’ conferences — and to travel to locales used in our novels.
There’s even the possibility that 50+ people are wiser than 30-something writers. 
Consequently, I don’t think it’s an accident that so many of us decide to write fiction later in life. The tumblers line up, click into place, and we decide we’re finally ready and able to begin novelizing — a decision we’d never have made years earlier.
Janet
