Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd

Editor. Writer. Professor. Host.

Reading Time

So They Started Young — So What? (A Rant About Authors)

L. B. Gale has an interesting blog post entitled “Fantasy Writers:  What We’re Up Against,” in which s/he profiles George R. R. Martin to give fantasy writers an impression of the writing life of one of the greats.  We learn, for example, that he won his first award when he was 17 and was nominated for a Hugo at 25, with his first novel published when he was 29, and so on.  Martin isn’t the only SF/F writer who started getting recognized when he was young, I’m sure, but there is something about looking at age as some kind of impressive element that bothers me.

What exactly is impressive about getting published at a young age, let alone winning awards at said age?  Writing isn’t like business, where making millions at a young age might be quite impressive indeed.  I’m sure a lot of people are envious of Mark Zuckerberg, who became a
billionaire before 30.  Why?  Because most people don’t make it in the business world when they are young.  To be fair, most people don’t become billionaires either, but the point still stands.
But writing can’t be held to the same standard.  Authors make it big when they are young, middle-aged, or damned old.  Kenneth Grahame didn’t publish The Wind in the Willows until his 50s.  Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes) at 66.  Anthony Burgess’s first novel at 39.  Mary Midgley at 56.  Joseph Conrad at 37.  Raymond Chandler at 43.  Richard Adams at about 52.  And on and on and on.  (There are bound to be plenty of SF/F examples too, but I didn’t want to spend an hour searching to find out.)
But their ages don’t matter.  We’re not talking about an 8-year-old writing a great science fiction novel, or a 115-year-old doing the same.  We’re talking about writers who came into prominence at various points in the typical span of a human life.  What matters isn’t that they wrote a great book at 17 or 52.  It’s that they wrote a great book.  What matters isn’t that they won an award at 17 or 52.  It’s that they won an award.  The age is irrelevant (or it should be).  We needn’t revere authors for being brilliant at a young age; let’s revere them for being brilliant.

What say you all?

Email
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Digg
Reddit
LinkedIn

Get My Newsletter!

Subscribe (RSS)

Support Me

Recent Posts

Top Posts

Archives
%d bloggers like this: