Do Writers Retire?

by Sandra Gail Lambert

A writer friend of mine and I, both in our seventies, are drinking tea at a table on a sidewalk of downtown Gainesville where we both live. We have both decided, after striving in our writing careers for many decades, that we don't care anymore. Is this what it means for a writer to retire, I ask. That we keep writing but we don't strive anymore? I've recently given up on getting a novel published "the regular way" and am serializing it on Substack which is a form of self-publishing. And I'm writing quick, less agonized over essays to go along with it. My friend says she likes the tone of these new essays. I’m having fun, I say. She talks about the ways her own writing has changed. We lean back, sip our tea, and we're both pleased, sort of smug even, with being these writers who we have become.

But we are also sort of hypocrites since she is at that moment waiting for word from her agent that her mainstream publisher has acquired her latest manuscript. And I am waiting for the final offer from a University Press for my latest collection of essays. Within a month after our visit, we are both set with contracts on our next books. My friends make jokes at my expense about "what not striving looks like."

But there has been a change. I know this because there are moments when the striving urge resurfaces and it's comfortably familiar and also a bit distasteful. For instance, when an agent on social media describes the type of books she's looking for and it's exactly like my work and I start looking for her email. But then I remember that I don't query agents anymore. I remember the relief about that decision. Or when just a few hours after I signed a contract for one book, I had thoughts about writing a series of travel essays. This did not awaken the urge. But then I started mentally outlining a proposal to pitch this book that didn't exist yet. A collection of travel essays remains an idea, but the follow-up striving urge has gone away.

Used to be, every time I was published or won an award, I'd explore how I could build on that. Were there places I could now apply or submit to next based on my most recent accomplishment? This was a good way to be. It was me acknowledging the value of my own work in concrete ways. I was always reaching. And I would never have done anything that diminished my work by the standards of the literary world I published within.

But now I've self-published. I like it. It makes me write more words with more ease. And it brings in more money than any other project of mine has. The end of the novel will be posted on Substack in March, and I cried all the way through making the audio version of the last chapter. So I erased that one and tried again. I kept my composure until the last few paragraphs which is when I, again, had to keep pausing the recording in order to wipe my eyes and take deep breaths. I would resume. And then my voice would fall apart. I'd tap the pause button and take time to just sob. I know when I continued my voice was always too loud and too quick.

Supposedly, it is such bad form to cry when reading your own work. It disrupts the attention of your audience. They can't understand what you're saying. It's too self-centered. There is much advice on how to avoid doing this: raise your eyebrows, cross your eyes, subtly self-inflict pain, solve a long division problem you've scribbled in the margin of your notes. But I decided not to re-record that last chapter. Because, right, I don't care. I get to cry. I get to explore working in a time-less way. I get to haphazardly construct an as yet deliciously unknown version of an old writer.

Audio Version: