by Renée Lukas 

Me at my first book signing

I’ve always defined myself by what I do. I’m a writer. I can’t imagine retiring. In fact, I expect to have a notebook in my hand on my deathbed. Imagine how unsettling it is to realize I’m in middle age and wondering about—and still working toward—the writing career I hope to have.  But I don’t feel alone, because I know it happens to many people just like me.

Middle age is a time, as they say in the South, when you have to have a “come to Jesus” talk with yourself. For those of you who are unfamiliar with “come to Jesus” talks, this is about getting real with something—in this case, yourself.

First, think back to your twenties. You may have graduated from college with no clue what you wanted to do with your life. Or you did have a serious goal that you stayed laser-focused on until you won that first job in your field. With either scenario, people always told you it was okay if you made a mistake because you had plenty of time to figure things out.

Can You Have a Career Do-Over?

Not to be gloom and doom here, but this isn’t the case when you reach your forties. Yes, you can have a second and NEW chapter in life. Yes, you can have a do-over if you don’t like the direction you’re taking. But at this stage, any decision you make WILL affect the rest of your life in a more tangible way. This is the time when you realize you can’t have nine lives—trying out every occupation and living in every country. It’s a romantic idea, but even if you live to be a hundred, when you’re in your forties, you have to brace yourself and make the decision you can only hope will be the right one. Scary stuff.

Now here’s a way to make it less scary. If you want a career change, or some career clarity, hopefully you know yourself a lot better than you did in your twenties. You can glance back in your memory and understand why you took the roads you took and where they led. In my case, a copywriting job allowed me to stay creative while paying the bills. It also kept me in the marketing realm more than the publishing or film industry, where I’d really like to be, so I’ve had to re-steer my boat a bit over the past several years.

Figuring Out Your Second Act

Over time, the people in your life, however well meaning, have become voices that get so loud you sometimes forget which voices are theirs and which ones are yours.

That’s why the best way to figure out your next step is to listen ONLY to yourself. To do that, you have to go somewhere alone where you can hear only your voice. A dark room, away from the kids. . . Maybe the bathroom is the only place you can find peace. Wherever it is, ask yourself questions and try to answer them as best you can: What truly makes you happy? Imagine getting up in the morning, getting ready to do your work. What kind of work is it that gives you that “I can’t wait to get going” feeling? If you haven’t had that in some time, what has caused your feelings of burnout?

My blog tends to focus on creative careers because they can be the most daunting, with ever-moving targets and fluctuations. For instance, you could have a passion for writing stories, then find yourself in a steady job on a hit TV show that doesn’t inspire you, that makes you feel so far away from why you wanted to write in the first place, but fear of financial security took over. Another example: you’ve been toiling so long, trying to break into an industry filled with so much rejection it’s made you doubt your own abilities and made you feel so disheartened and frustrated that you’ve considered a complete career change.

If you’re a writer—author, screenwriter, any type of writer—in your forties, and you haven’t had the J.K. Rowling moment you’ve dreamed of, or maybe your expectations were just to be able to pay your bills with your writing—either way, if you’re having a “come to Jesus” feeling about your career, keep watching this blog. I’m going to have a series about the nuts and bolts of different types of writing careers and tips on how middle-age writers can get on the right track or change tracks, as the case may be, to get there.

I’ll be covering screenwriters, novelists and bloggers, for starters. So check back soon!