Ok so on Tuesday I shared this image from the Advice From a Unicorn desk calendar with my Instagram followers.
I coupled this with one small correction which was don’t just start anywhere, start at any time. Which, I don’t know about everyone else, but the idea has stuck with me all week, and I’ve been thinking about writing this post… all week.
Anyway, today the author Laura C. Cantu posted a quote that said “You are not too old, and it is not too late.” So I figured, hey, I must not be the only one who has struggled with this, let me just put it into words.
Here goes.
I spent a lot of time feeling like I was too young to do the things I wanted to do. I was too young to publish a book; books were published by old dusty adults who had spent years learning so that they could write beautiful prose that would touch everyone who read them. I felt this way pretty much right up until the point where I suddenly felt too old to “follow my dreams” as it were.
On Tuesday when I posted that picture, I also posted that you are not too young, nor too old, to create. If you’re 8 and you want to write a book, more power to you! I met a little girl who was about that age at a book festival last year who had three books under her belt. So it’s entirely possible. If you’re 40 and you’ve had a book living inside you this long, for the love of all that’s literary let that baby out! Don’t let your age hinder you. And don’t let anyone else tell you can’t do something because of a stupid number on your birth certificate.
The same goes for creators of any kind! Don’t wait till you “grow up” to become what you always wanted to be, do it now. I often feel like I’m so behind where I wanted to be by this age, and part of that is because I spent years thinking I was too young to do things until one day I was suddenly too old and needed to go and get a “real job”. But the truth of the matter is, if you have a piece of art—book or painting or comic or whatever—living inside of you then you are neither too young or too old. You are precisely the right age you were meant to be to create that thing. So go and create it!
Now, go forth and make art!
Lou
louinprogress 