On Late-Blooming: Author Karen Dukess Debuts a Novel at 56
Show Snapshot:
Self-proclaimed late bloomer, novelist Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party, became a first-time author in her mid-50s. In this episode, she talks the mindset shift that made this bucket-list dream a reality. If you have a long simmering book idea of your own, are curious about how to crack open the world of book publishing, or simply need a jolt of inspiration for your own creative midlife bloom, you don’t want to miss this episode. Book lover bonus! We talk reads galore.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. How a mindset shift fueled Karen’s pivot into fiction.
2. What’s a writing group and how does it work?
3. The Eighties: Olden Days or Golden Days?
4. Why confidence is a key creative ingredient.
5. How to give yourself permission to pursue your dreams.
6. Books by first-time authors age 50+
7. Landing a book agent and getting published.
8. Like it or not—learn to sell yourself.
9. Feeling stuck? Get yourself an accountability partner.
Quotable:
I think a lot of women in midlife who want to make changes, who want to do something new, feel they need some sort of permission to do that. And I think that was something I had to get over. You know, you get to midlife and you don't need permission. You can just do it because you want to do it.
In midlife, I started thinking that the fear of not doing it well enough, which is what stopped me for so long, was replaced by the fear of not doing it at all.
Snackable Smarts:
Don't get caught up in thinking you have to be a genius to write. Or that you have to write well, right from the get-go. This is not a good developmental mindset for doing anything.
Writing is hard, and you have to let yourself write bad stuff to write good stuff.
You can start something, not knowing where you're going.
"Trust the process. Let the story reveal itself."
Confidence comes from doing.
We need to be better at promoting ourselves without apology.
You can get a lot of joy out of your kids' milestones. But you don't want your joy only to be their milestones. You need to have your own milestones.
People stay stuck because they're afraid of change.
Find an accountability partner to hold your feet to the fire.
Word of Mouth. Karen’s Product Pick:
More Resources:
Books
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host Katie Fogarty.
One of the pleasures of turning 50, and moving firmly into midlife, is that the slings and arrows that often wounded early in school or troubled you in your twenties are softened, transformed, or become vindication, even triumph. I'm joined today by self-proclaimed late-bloomer, novelist Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party, a summertime romp through Cape Cod and literary New York. Karen became a first-time author in her mid-fifties, after an eclectic career. She was a UN speechwriter, reporter, magazine publisher, and even had a stint as a tour guide in the former Soviet Union. She is the definition of "It's never too late to become the woman you were meant to be." If you have a long-simmering book idea of your own or are curious about how to crack open the world of book publishing, or simply need a jolt of inspiration for your own midlife bloom, you don't want to miss this episode. Welcome, Karen.
Karen Dukess (01:02):
Hi, great to be here.
Katie (01:04):
I'm really so thrilled. I got to spend my summer beach reads with your book. And it's populated with book lovers, writers, and want-to-be writers. And at one point, two characters are talking and one says to another, "It's a great accomplishment to finish a story and get it published. It's everything.” That character is so right. Finishing a novel, getting it published, that’s a bucket-list victory for anyone. Doing it for the first time in your mid-fifties though is unexpected. How did you make this happen?
Karen (01:35):
With a lot of effort. Not just writing effort, but changing my mindset effort. I probably first had the desire to be a writer when I was a kid. And I used to write just for fun. To imagine the world that I wished I lived in: on a ranch with brothers instead of the world I lived in. In the suburbs with sisters who I love, but still... And I always wanted to write. I wrote through college and after.
But once I hit adolescence, I wrote with a lot of angst. And writing wasn't a joy. It became sort of an intellectual competition. And I got very caught up in thinking I had to be a genius to write. Or that I had to write really well, right from the get-go. Which is not a really good developmental mindset for doing anything. Because I would start writing and the inner critic would be fierce and say, "That's terrible." And I would stop. And I went through this for a long time. Which is why the career I had was writing, but it wasn't fiction writing, it wasn't the kind of writing that I really deep down wanted to do.
Karen (02:40):
I liked being a journalist. I worked as a newspaper reporter in the United States and in Russia, I wrote book reviews, I blogged, and as you mentioned, I worked as a speechwriter at the UN. All great jobs and writing jobs. So, I was developing skills, but it was easier for me because true passion wasn't involved. So, the stakes were not so high. I could not worry so much. I didn't worry so much about, "Was it good enough?" Because it wasn't what I deep down cared most about.
Katie (03:10):
Right. Your identity wasn't really tangled up it.
Karen (03:13):
Exactly. So, I could write and not be so distraught if it didn't go well. And also writing more freely because I wasn't so tied up in it. It was easier to do. So, you know, I had good jobs and I had jobs where I was able to accommodate family life. I had kids. And I was freelance for a while, I worked part-time. And it was all a good career, but increasingly as I got older, I was getting more and more frustrated that it wasn't really what I wanted to do.
It was shortly before I turned 50 that I joined a writing group. I was invited to join just by chance. And it was a writing group that had a leader. So, it was a sort of cross between a class and a writing group. But it wasn't a class, it wasn't a workshop. We would show up every week, sometimes it was every two weeks, we'd show up with some writing, share it, discuss it and move on. And we also shared a lot of the struggles of writing. And it was in that group that I learned what I should have learned many, many years before. Which is that writing is hard and you have to let yourself write bad stuff to write good stuff. And everybody struggles, even the really great published writers.
Katie (04:23):
I can totally relate to that. And I think that so many women can. We feel like it needs to be perfect in order for us to put something out into the world. But it's interesting. You're a mom, I'm a mom. Mothers are used to training their kids to try new things and we say, "Don't worry about the outcome" and, "Practice makes perfect." And we give our kids coaching that we don't even take ourselves.
Karen (04:45):
That's a really good point. We are so much harder on ourselves. So much harder. And I learned in the writing group that everybody struggles. I also started reading a lot of books and essays about writers' experiences. So, they weren't books so much on how to write, but about the writing process. And I had to remind myself, again and again, this is supposed to be hard and that's okay. And that's not a reason not to do it.
Katie (05:10):
One of the writing books that I like, I think the title is called Just Open a Vein and it kind of makes me laugh because it is a testament to how hard it is to produce something that's good.
So, walk us through a little bit about how it works with a book writing group. If we were going to do a DIY for ourselves, what kind of schedule were you on? What kind of output were you producing in any given day or week?
Karen (05:34):
So, the group I was in initially, it was meeting every other week, and it wouldn't go consistently throughout the year. We'd have a couple of months, then there'd be a break, then in a month or two, we'd meet again for a few weeks, kind of like two semesters. And so, whether it was twice a week, and then later while it was once a week, you just needed to show up with some kind of writing.
The people in my group were doing all different writings. There was memoir, poetry, fiction, and then people who had changed around. And it was very open and very loose. The leader would sometimes give a prompt the week before. So, it could be a line from a poem or an idea if you needed a sort of jumping-off point. I almost never used the prompts. And it was in that group that I kind of discovered things I didn't even plan to write about. Probably the most important thing I learned in this group because it was a very encouraging group not like a critique class, was that you can just start something, not knowing where you're going and be encouraged to continue it and discover something new that you're doing.
So, I think a group it's really important that it be very open and encouraging and not rigid. Because that's kind of against the whole idea of freeing yourself up. Plus, I was in a group with people who were my age and a little older, which was really nice. It's nice to be with people older than you who are striving toward their goals. It's like a great example and encouragement. You don't feel like a "has been.”
Katie (07:05):
Absolutely. It's good to be surrounded by like-minded peers and people who are kind of walking the same path as you. And it's so important to have an accountability partner, not just with writing, but with all the things that we need to hold our feet to the fire. So, it's so smart that you went out and found that that group to keep you honest.
My question about your book is that it's set in 1987 and that caught my eye because that's my year. Right? That's my high school graduation year. And I feel so much love and attachment to 1987. I feel like it's still 1987 in some ways. And all the pop culture references, the Walkmans, the boom boxes, the music from La Bamba. It really felt like a homecoming. Why did you choose to center your story in this year?
Karen (07:52):
I knew I was going to center it in the eighties because it evolved that way from the start. So, one of the things I learned in his writing group is sometimes you start writing one thing and it turns into another, and that's okay. I used to think you had to sort of sit down and think up a whole plot and know exactly what you're doing and then start. And that was one of the reasons why I didn't write a novel until my fifties.
In this group, I would write on Tuesdays because I was working part-time as a speechwriter at the UN. So, I'd work three days a week. I'd save Fridays for all the kids' stuff and the home stuff and the doctor's appointments, et cetera. And then my writing group met on Tuesdays at 4:00. So, I would write on Tuesdays. So, that's another thing I think that's important. You can achieve a new goal bit by bit. You don't have to throw away everything and clear the decks completely.
Katie (08:44):
Absolutely. You can have a side hustle and kind of evolve your way into your next chapter. It doesn't have to be a hard stop.
Karen (08:52):
And it was an evolution for me, you become more comfortable with achieving your goal. So, I wrote a piece in this writing group, a piece of memoir that was...There's one chapter in the book, the scene when the protagonist who's a 25-year-old woman, who's fled her job in publishing. She gets passed over for promotion, and she goes to Cape Cod and she works for a New Yorker writer. There's an early scene where she goes to the beach with a young artist she's met. The beach is empty and they pull in the lobster pot. That's the only scene from the book that actually comes from my life. I wanted to write about this day I had on the beach with this young artist I'd met. And we did pull in a lobster pot that had been washed close to shore because of a storm. And we took the lobsters in it, being young and not aware we were poaching, and I wanted to write about that scene because it was a magical day with this young man who later died.
In the writing group, many years after that, I wanted to just capture this special day and this person. So, I thought I was writing something that was a memoir. I was in the beginning, but then I had to go into the writing group the next week and I had to continue. And so, I started writing about myself in the eighties when I was working in publishing after college. And I thought, okay, "I'll do something kind of memoir-ish." And it suddenly seemed like a long-ago time, in a very different time period. And it was fun to write about it. And then one day when I was writing, it just went totally fictional. A character appeared. The character of Jeremy, who's this snarky, talented, young writer. And he was completely made up. And he had some sort of secret and I didn't know what it was. And I went into the writing group. I said, "I have no idea where this is going." And the leader of the writing group said what he ended up saying to me practically every week for the next several years, which was just, "Trust the process. Let the story reveal itself." And so I kept going.
From that, I wrote the book. So the eighties just kind of happened. But I found, I really liked going back to that time. It was a time before social media. A lot of my plot points couldn't really happen with social media because you'd google someone or you'd look on their Facebook page and know things that my characters couldn't have known, didn't know.
Katie (11:03):
Right.
Karen (11:03):
And it's funny, you know, you live your own life. You don't think about your high school years as being another era, but in writing about them, it felt so different. And some younger readers who did not live through the eighties as teenagers or young adults have read it and said, "Oh, I love this book because I love historical fiction."
Katie (11:24):
My 13-year-old is always saying, "Mom, that was like in the olden days, in the Eighties."
Karen (11:29):
Right? Like it was hoop skirts.
Katie (11:31):
Right? Like the Eighties are the olden days? They were the golden days. Are you kidding?
I love your writing coach's suggestion that you trust the process. And that you just wait to see what happens to you and that you trust the journey. Because that's beyond writing advice, it's life advice. Do you think you could have made this leap into writing fiction when were you younger? I know that you had said that it was always a dream of yours. But did you have to wait for this time in your life? Could there have been a shortcut earlier if you had done something differently?
Karen (12:05):
I don't know. I mean, I think I didn't have the confidence to do it when I was younger. You know, writing is very personal. And even if you're writing fiction, you're revealing things about yourself. You may not be revealing what you think you're revealing. I just didn't have the confidence. And I think I had the intellect but I didn't have confidence in my intellect. But more than that, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. And I also thought that you needed to know exactly what you wanted to say. And one of the things I learned in my writing group is what you need to say is what you're going to say. You know, if you open yourself to the process.
Katie (12:41):
It's like a Zen Koan. It's like one of those things that you're like, that makes so much sense, but I don't quite understand it.
Karen (12:47):
Yeah. But I think it's true that you realize what you need to write about. And, you know, I’m working on another novel now, and in some ways, it's probably about some of the same things but it's going to be a completely different book. I just think that the things that obsess you are the things that obsess you, and that's what you're going to end up writing about. Unless you have a very specific genre, that's just something you want to do as an intellectual idea. But the way I write, it's more, not autobiographical, but personal.
Katie (13:16):
Ah, that makes so much sense. And what you said about confidence, I can really relate to, because I think oftentimes women — and I'm speaking really for myself but I know that it applies to different friends and different clients that I've worked with — confidence is something that you really grow into. And that you start to acquire when you feel that you have developed the skills or that you've developed a viewpoint. And also you no longer want to wait for people to give you permission.
Karen (13:47):
Exactly.
Katie (13:50):
A lot of young women wait to be given permission. Or you think that somebody is in charge, but the reality is, you are in charge. You need to give yourself permission to do whatever it is that you want to do. To write a book. Or in my case, launch a podcast. So, I can completely relate to that. And because we live in this of this sort of youth-obsessed culture, where we see media and culture, like serving really like young stars or all those lists about "Thirty Under 30," or Olympic gymnasts, or people that are succeeding like pop stars that are all in their teens. Our culture is fixated on young success. You had success later. I mean, do you feel that you savor it in a different way than if it happened when the world felt limitless?
Karen (14:38):
Definitely. And I think it's interesting because I don't think it's just young women who wait for permission. I think a lot of women in midlife who want to make changes, who want to do something new, feel they need some sort of permission to do that. Or that sometimes that “permission" may take the form of some validation like, "Oh, I need to get another degree because then I have the official stamp of 'I'm doing this seriously.'" Or, "I need to be good enough to do it. I can't write, or I can't do podcasts, because I'm not good enough". And I think that was something I had to get over.
You know, you get to midlife and you don't need permission. You can just do it because you want to do it. And that's something that's kind of addressed in my book, which is essentially, even though there's lots of drama, and romance, and things that happen to this young woman over the course of the summer, it's really about her inner journey to claim her voice. That really reflects my voice and how in midlife, the fear of not doing it well enough, which is what stopped me for so long, was kind of replaced by the fear of not doing it at all. You know, it was the, "I don't want to be 90 years old and saying, I didn't do X, Y, and Z because I was too afraid."
So, in a way, if you switched the focus to not, "I have to be great to do it," but, "I just want to do it," then it doesn't even matter so much if you do it badly, but you're at least doing what you want to do. And there's great satisfaction in that. I mean, I liked the jobs I had. I got very tired of the speech-writing job because I became more aware that it wasn't what I really wanted to be doing but there was nothing so sweet as finally doing what you really want to do.
One of the happiest moments of my life was when I finished this novel. And there was no guarantee that it would be published. I was just really like bowled over by the fact that I had broken through the insecurities and the blocks that I had had to do this thing I wanted to do. It seems so simple: do what you want to do. But it's not.
Katie (16:35):
Confidence comes from doing. Absolutely. Confidence comes from doing. And when I launched this podcast a few weeks ago, I had a couple of conversations with friends. And they were asking me, "Well, what do you think is going to happen? And what kind of outcome do you want? Are you hoping to grow an audience? Or win new business or new clients?" And my honest answer was, "I simply want to do it. I want to enjoy the process. I want to enjoy the conversations. I want to enjoy creating something that I've thought about doing for a while." And so, I can completely relate to that. We have a society that really focuses on external success, like maybe getting it published or having a certain number of Instagram followers. But there can be so much happiness and a sense of accomplishment, by simply doing the things that light us up. And it sounds like you're absolutely doing that.
Karen (17:32):
Yeah. And also want to get back to what you said about the sort of cult of youth and everything. You know, when I was at my job at the UN, I worked with a lot of younger people; a lot of women in their late twenties and early thirties, sometimes even younger. And I was sort of self-conscious about my age because, you know, I'd find myself saying something like mentioning that I had been in Russia and I first studied there and they'd say, "When?" And I'd think, "Oh my God, I'm going to say 80-something, before they were born.” So, I was kind of downplaying my age. And then once I wrote the novel, I realized, "No. This is an inspiring thing. This is a good thing." And I was very upfront about this is how old I am, because I would see things where writers would post on Twitter, write an essay, like, "It's too late for me, I'm 40. And I haven't written my novel." I'm like, "Come on."
There's a book, you mentioned there are a lot of books mentioned in my book, and there's a lot of the books have reasons to be there. They reflect the characters, interests, et cetera. But there is one book in there that I put in there because I wanted to. And it's just mentioned, it's a book on somebody's bookshelf and it's a book called Stones from Ibarra. And it's by a woman named Harriet Doerr who wrote it, I think she was 68 or 70 and won a National Book Award for it. And I just put it there as sort of my nod to late-bloomers and to remind myself I'm not too old to write another book.
Katie (18:58):
I love that book. I actually gave that book as a birthday gift to a friend of mine from high school. She's a wonderful writer. She writes mostly personal pieces on like Huff Post and a website called The Mighty about her child with special needs, and she has a full slate. She's got four kids, but she really wants to write a book. And for her 50th birthday, I gave her a bag of books that were all published by women for the first time after 50.
Karen (19:27):
Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to do that sometime. I have a lot of writer friends.
Katie (19:31):
I will share this, I will put all the books in the show notes for people who are interested because I have a dozen fabulous books, including the one you just referenced. And I didn't know you yet because otherwise, your book would have been in there too. So, how old were you when you published The Last Book Party?
Karen (19:47):
I was 55 when I sold it. And 56 when it was published. And I was lucky because it was published very quickly. I mean, when I finished, and I really was very gratified, of course, I wanted it to be published. But as you said, it was doing it and just enjoying it. And accomplishing it was a thrill. And then I was really lucky to find an agent quickly, and he sold it quickly, and they brought it out quickly, which is great because publishing can be very slow. I was determined to stick with it as long as I had to, to self-publish it if had to. I was just like, "This is a book and I'm going to make it into a book.”
Katie (20:18):
What's the publishing process like? Walk us through that.
Karen (20:23):
So, I had two friends in my town that worked in publishing. One was a children's book editor, one was a lawyer at a literary agency. They each recommended a literary agent to me. One was a man, one was a woman. And I didn't know which to send the manuscript to first. I sent it to the woman first. She liked it. But she thought it was too much about publishing. She passed.
I sent it to the next one. And he really liked it, but he was like, “It wasn't quite done yet.” And as soon as he said why, I realized he was right. And he offered to meet with me to talk about how he thought I could really complete it in the right way. And I jumped at that chance. Because one of the most difficult things, when you have a finished manuscript, is who do you take advice from? I know lots of readers. Lots of smart people. But you know, it's hard to get the right person. You can get different opinions from everybody.
I met him and I liked him a lot. And all of his ideas, they weren't dramatic, but they were kind of ramping up things, and it just made sense to me. So, he didn't offer to represent me at that point. He said if you can go revise and do these things, then we'll talk again. And so that was in late May 2018. And I said to him, "I'll try to do it by the end of the summer." And then I just got on a roll. I don't know how. My youngest was graduating high school that June, which is a pretty busy time, but I just had such clarity at that point of what I needed to do.
We went on vacation to Cape Cod. And my husband and my sons were fishing. And I thought, "I don't want to fish. I don't even need a vacation. I need to finish this book." And I just went through the whole thing and I finished it in early July. And I sent it back to the agent on a Friday and he told me he'd get back to me Monday. And then he texted me on Saturday saying that he loved it and let's talk Monday. It was so thrilling. I can't even tell you it. And also the timing was incredible. Because my son had just graduated high school. I was becoming an empty-nester and suddenly I had this big thing.
So, he sent it out to a bunch of editors and he said, "This can go really fast." Which means you could have a book deal in a week or two, or you could be rejected by basically all the big publishing houses in New York, and then I can't help you. So, luckily there were a lot of people...
Katie (22:41):
He was very clear. He laid it out for you.
Karen (22:43):
It went really fast and there was a lot of interest. At about a week after that, there was an auction. And it sold on auction. And then, Henry Holt is who I ended up with, initially, they were going to bring it out in summer, spring, summer 2020. And they asked me, "Can you edit really fast? We'd like to bring it out in summer 2019." And I was thrilled. Of course, I didn't know what was coming in horrible 2020.
Katie (23:09):
Who did?
Karen (23:09):
And I was just thrilled because you know, I wasn't young and I didn't want to wait two years. So, that's great.
Katie (23:18):
Perfect story. And you're so lucky that it did come out earlier. Because there's been so much chaos and distractions. It might've been harder to take hold.
So, I have read that when you publish a book, getting the book an agent, getting it published, feels like the mountain that you've climbed. But you know, part two is getting attention for it. Helping out the publishing team and promoting it. What steps do you need to take to get your published book on lists, in people's hands? How do you promote it?
Karen (23:53):
Well, the publisher does a lot, hopefully. But they expect the author to do a lot. And I think, you know, social media, I don't know how you promote a book without social media. And it's hard for a lot of writers. A lot of writers are introverts. That's why they read and write all the time but you have to be out there. And you have to get over this sense that it's unseemly to promote yourself to say, "Hey, look at me." It feels a little unseemly, but someone said to me once, "You have to remember, you're not promoting yourself, you're promoting your book. You love your book. You worked so hard on your book. Nobody feels more strongly about it than you do."
Katie (24:28):
Nothing wrong with promoting yourself. I mean, I actually read a great book last year. It's by an author named Lydia Fenet. She's Christie's lead auctioneer. She's one of the most powerful benefit auctioneers in the country. She sells things for a living. And she wrote a book called The Most Powerful Woman in the Room is You. And it has a whole chapter about why women should be better about selling themselves, selling their products, selling their ideas, selling their services. And she addresses what you said, that sometimes people feel it's unseemly or maybe it feels deeply unladylike, or it feels a little bit crass. But at the end of the day, if you have something to share, a book, or a company that you care about, or services that are going to make a difference in somebody's lives, the only way you're going to connect those to a consumer is by stepping into that breach and really selling and advocating. And it's something that we all need to be better at doing.
Karen (25:27):
Yeah, you're so right. I mean, women have a hard time with it. And I've seen so many times on social media where women promoting a book, I don't see men doing this, we'll be like, "Sorry for the self-promotion. Or I promise only two more weeks of this, but it would be really nice if you...you know, my publisher says I have to do it." And there are all these apologies that just detract from the message. And, you know, I try very much to write about other things on social media other than myself and my book, but when you're on a book tour and you're constantly meeting people and going places. And they want to see themselves reflected on social media, you end up doing more about yourself. And at some point, I just had to say, "You know what? If someone's sick of me, they don't have to follow me". That's what I have to do right now. But it's definitely hard for women. I want to look up that book for sure.
Katie (26:17):
It's wonderful. I'll also put it in the show notes and I'll send you the title afterward. She's a very engaging and interesting writer with a cool career story.
You mentioned earlier that you're an empty-nester and I want to explore that a little bit. I just sent my own oldest daughter back to school for a second year, but I have younger ones at home. So how, I'm just curious, because this is something that I'm facing, and that a lot of my friends and listeners are facing. How are navigating this change in family dynamics?
Karen (26:46):
Well, what's interesting about it is that I started thinking about it before it happened. As I think most people do because it's looming. And you know, I worked, I always worked part-time. Initially, I worked part-time to accommodate, you know, wanting time with my kids and I was fortunate enough to be able to do it. And then I continued working part-time because I was writing. But it was very motivating for me to think about my goals, knowing that in a few years my kids were going to be gone and there was going to be a lot of time. And also I became very conscious of the fact when my kids were in high school, that we get so much joy from our kids' milestones. And they have so many in high school. There's every year there's a graduation, there's a science research project, there's a sports event and graduation. And there's all this excitement of things happening in their lives. There's also hardship. But if things are going well, you get a lot of joy out of your kids' milestones. And I increasingly had this feeling like I don't want my joy to only be their milestones. I want to have my own milestones. And I don't want to be....
Katie (27:54):
That gives your kids joy too. I think that your kids don't want you to be dependent upon them in a certain way. And I've seen this dynamic where kids feel like they're afraid to leave their parents. Or that it's going to be so hard for them, or their mom. That makes it hard for the kid. Kids are excited to see you blooming and trying new things and being out there and be sort of separating from them as well.
Karen (28:24):
Yes. And also on the flip-side, they don't really like seeing you unhappy. I mean, something that my younger son said once— he didn't mean, well, it was very motivating to me. He was probably in 10th grade and I probably was complaining a little too much about my job. My job at the UN, I was writing about gender equality which I believe in and its important. I liked it, but I've been doing the job a long time. There was a lot of bureaucracy. There was a lot of editing of boring reports. And mostly as I said earlier, it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. And I started feeling like, as I dragged myself to the train and into work and spending these long days, doing something I didn't want to be doing. I must have been complaining about it too much. Because my son was sitting at the table one day and he sort of sighed. And he said, "When I grow up, I want to have a job that's exciting." And it was so much like an arrow in my heart. It made me feel awful. But I thought about it and I was like, "My God, he's right. This is my life. Like, why am I doing something that I don't want to do?
Katie (29:26):
He was so spot on. He was so smart. And people stay stuck because they're afraid of change. My day job is to be a career coach. And I talk to a lot of people who remain in jobs, who remain in industries that they do not enjoy, that they don't like, where they don't feel they're making an impact, but they're fearful of change. And you only get one life, and this is it.
Karen (29:50):
Yeah. And I remember one day when I was at work, Once I knew this piece of writing that I had done started becoming a novel and I worked at it for quite a long time. s I went on, it became more real to me that I was going to achieve this goal. But I really wanted to keep my eye on my goal because it's very easy when you're in a job to just get caught up in it. And another six months go by and another six months go by, and you're suddenly another year has gone by and you haven't made a change.
So, I would do just remind myself in every way I could. I even did these silly things. And I don't think this made it happen for me, but I don't know. It helps me at work, you know, every six weeks or whatever, I had to change the password on my computer at the UN. So, I would make the password something the first, I think it was my initials and the word "book" and some numbers. And then I had to change it. I changed it to something about "agent," and then I changed it to "publish," just to remind myself every single time when I went to this job that I really didn't love every morning. When I logged on, I was reminding myself of what my real goal was.
Katie (30:59):
You had a support group of writers and you had a password support group.
Karen (31:04):
I did. It really helped. I also had a very focused accountability partner in a college friend of mine who lived in another city and she is very methodical and organized. She wanted to make a change in her career, nothing to do with writing. And we would talk every six to eight weeks and talk about what our short-term goals were and what we were struggling with. But in a very focused way; it wasn't like a venting complaining session. It was, “Here's what I'm struggling with and what should or can I do to turn things around?" She would write down my goals and save it. I would write it down and lose it. But we would talk and we did this for over a year, maybe two years, we still do it. And we both ended up making really big changes. I ended up writing and publishing a book and she ended up dissolving her consultancy and getting a job. Something that she was told by a lot of people, you know, "You're a 56-year-old woman. You're not going to get a great job." but she did. And she'd been working on her own for 15, 20 years. And she got back into the workplace with a job that she's doing now. So, that was really key.
Katie (32:16):
That is such smart advice. I would encourage anyone listening to this who has a goal, a goal that's sort of in the back of your mind, to work with a friend, to work with an accountability partner. Maybe it's your husband, maybe it's your wife— be a team to keep each other accountable.
Karen, this has been such an amazing conversation. I want to encourage everyone to look for your book The Last Book Party. It's just this wonderful summary, fun read. I think that it would be fabulous in the fall too, as we sort of shelter-in-and-out-of-place.
But before we wrap, I want to ask you for everyone on the call, who's listening and is maybe curious about writing, curious about publishing, curious about launching a creative project. Is there one resource or product that helped you, that you could share with our listeners?
Karen (33:10):
I read a lot of books about writing and the process. One of my favorites is The Kite and the String by Alice Mattison. Because it didn't just talk about the mechanics of writing. It talked about some of the things I've touched on today, about how stories develop, trusting yourself, trusting in the process, and not stopping with some of the psychological blocks that get in the way. So, I love that one.
And generally, there's so much advice online. There are accountability tools, there are so many essays and blogs that you can just google about goal-setting and goal-keeping and accountability. And I find that those things really help. I just think you have to make a rule for yourself that you don't put more time into reading those things than addressing your goal. So, I had to make a rule for myself at one point that I was not allowed to read about writing unless I had written that day.
Katie (34:04):
That is a fabulous rule. Thank you so much. How can our listeners continue to find you, your books, and keep following your work and learn when book number two is out?
Karen (34:14):
You can follow me on social media and Instagram and Twitter at @karendukess. I'm more active on Instagram, which is a fantastic book community. I often share books that I've loved on Instagram, and I follow a lot of writers and people who post about books. And my website, karendukess.com. The Last Book Party, which is in paper and hardback now, is available in audio and Kindle as well, wherever you buy books, hopefully at an independent bookstore.
Katie (34:43):
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Karen.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50, who are aging without apology. Thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed the show and you have book lovers or podcast fans in your life, please spread the word. You can also help us grow by heading to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And visit us at acertainagepod.com for show notes and bonus content. Special thanks to Michael Mancini Productions who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time. And until then: age boldly beauties.