Do Writers Retire?

If you’ve been working for years as a freelance writer, will you be considering retiring as other working people do? When you work for a salary, your job has an end point. For most people that’s around age 65 or a bit later. But for a writer, is there an end point?

Some writers, especially those who write books, have one or two successes, then nothing. While they may be in the limelight for a little while, it’s not a steady income. But a freelance writer, even a moderately successful one, has the ability to publish in different market for as long as those market exist.

But after you’ve been writing for 20 or 30 years, you may be ready to switch gears. As a freelance writer, you’ve been writing mostly non-fiction. Now that you’re approaching retirement age and a regular Social Security income, even though it may or may not be as much as you earned previously,

Do you know many former writers? Does that category even exist? Do you, as a writer, have an obligation to write or is that something you have for yourself? It’s one thing to stop feeling the obligation to write and another thing to never write anything again. After all, it’s as odd for a writer to be retired from words as it is for a man or woman to be retired from love.

Perhaps it’s not so much retirement from writing as it’s retirement from commercial publishing that you seek. After all, you have been putting up with the vagaries of editors for your entire career. Don’t you wish that you didn’t have to struggle so hard?

The Retirement Book of Genesis might read like this: “ In the beginning, there was no retirement. There were no old people. In the Stone Age, everyone was fully employed until age 20, by which time nearly everyone was dead, usually of unnatural causes.” That’s not true today, as people live longer and are more active for a longer period of their lives. So, too, are writers.

Retirement resulted from the pension system enacted in Germany in the late 19th century, but it didn’t come to America until the 1930s, when the country needed to find a way to make room for younger workers by encouraging older ones to stop. Older people like retirement because they get to stop working and still enjoy some financial protection, whether from the U.S. Government or from their own pension or 401K contributions. Young people like retirement because it gets the old people out of jobs, making room for them. Maybe there are too many writers—or not enough readers to go around. Unfortunately, compulsory retirement won’t help all the young writers out there.

Unlike sports celebrities, writers have fewer fans. They earn less money and their value to the public isn’t necessarily diminished by age—Charles Dickens did much of his best writing in his older years. In many cases, it is enhanced, not simply because there’s a real possibility that their talents will improve with years of practice, but also because readers want to interact with them at 90 as much as they do with writers at 20.

All writers are different, so it’s impossible to tell when each will produce his or her best work. Some never match their earlier work while others reach their peak mid career. Still others don’t begin writing until later in life and reach their peak almost near the end of their lives.

For a freelance writer, retirement actually means the end of struggling. Officially, you’ll gain a steadier income after 65—or now 66. And you won’t necessarily have to struggle to pay bills, so you can take a much needed sigh before continuing on.

Next Week: So You’re Retired, Now What?

Black Friday Humbug Redux

Black Friday is upon us once again. When I first began writing this blog six years ago, one of my first posts concerned Black Friday. You might ask what Black Friday has to do with writing. Well, not a whole lot, but, then again, it could generate some interesting stories and articles.

As I prepare to give thanks for all the good things and the few true friends I have, I’m planning on what I’ll do the day after Thanksgiving. That particular day is now almost a national holiday, albeit without the blessing of Congress. Over the last six years, retailers have ramped up their sales and promotions for this one day when it seems like everyone goes shopping. But not everyone, for I have never given in to temptation. And I'm not any richer or poorer for it.

You see, I choose to stay home, avoid the crowds, and wait until a calmer time, say the day before Christmas, to do my shopping. Seriously, I shop for Christmas all year round. Why wait for the bargains on Black Friday? The stores all have them at other times. It's just that they have everyone trained to think that if they shop on the day after Thanksgiving, that something magical will happen to their pocketbook.

Today, I don’t even have to go out of my house to do my Christmas shopping. Last year, I did almost all of it online in the quiet of my home while sipping a piping hot cup of coffee. And for those of us who do use the Internet as our virtual shopping mall, Black Friday isn’t even that important. For us, Cyber Monday is the big day.

So what does this all have to do with you, the poor freelance writer? You, like me, probably can’t afford a whole lot of gifts anyway. With all the hoopla what has accompanied Black Friday in recent years—there’s always the controversy of if and when stores should open on Thanksgiving. Now let’s see, which one will open the earliest? On the local T.V. news last night, the consumer reporter presented listeners with the schedule of store openings. With all that’s happening in the world right now, how important is that?

Unlike in previous years, no store seems to be staying open all night. In fact, one group of stores promoted the idea of staying closed on Thanksgiving just so their employees could spend time with their families. Sounds great, but I’m sure that wasn’t the reason. In fact, that promotion got them more coverage than that of all the other stores combined.

Black Friday presents lots of ideas for writers, the most important of which is greed. Competition, between stores and between shoppers, is another one that offers lots of possibilities. And for those who write articles, why not find out how this whole blasted thing got started or how important is it to each store’s bottom line.


Look at Scrooge, Charles Dickens' lovable character in his story "A Christmas Carol." I think everyone shops like crazy because they don't want to be called a "Scrooge." But really that old guy was just depressed because the days got shorter and the London streets were dark, dingy, and smelly in Dickens' day. No wonder Scrooge wasn't all excited about Christmas. But through his story, Dickens does leave us with a strong message. It's not what you give, but how you give it. Remember that the next time you whip out your credit card.

A Dickens of a Christmas

Today, everyone gets swept up in the retail, shop-til-you-drop world of Christmas. But for several centuries, it’s been writers who have memorialized holiday traditions or even created new ones through their stories. Two that come to mind are Clement Clark Moore’s poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and Charles Dickens’ novella “A Christmas Carol,” my all-time favorite.

It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without ole Charlie Dickens’ classic. Sure, the ghosts are spooky, but he draws his readers into the story in such a way as to make them experience cold, snowy, in some ways, desolate 19th-century London. I’ve seen every film version and have read the story many times. In some ways, it was Charles Dickens who inspired me to be a writer. And to think it all started with Christmas.

“A Christmas Carol”is probably the best-known and best-loved Christmas story of all time. It has even been credited with changing the way 19th-century Brits and Americans celebrated Christmas. Dickens’ tale tells the story of a greedy, rich, Christmas-hating old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who’s constantly proclaiming “Bah, humbug!” One Christmas Eve Scrooge receives a visit from three spirits. These spirits—the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come—show him scenes from his past, present, and future. This supernatural experience transforms him into a joyous, generous soul who cherishes Christmas above all other times of year.

But what inspired Dickens to pen such a story? Most literary historians believe it was his
concern for the poor that brought him the inspiration needed to write “A Christmas Carol.” In September of 1843, at the invitation of Miss Angela Burdett Coutts, a wealthy philanthropist and a friend of his, Dickens toured one of London's Ragged Schools. Funded by private charity, these schools sought to educate some of the city's poorest children. The visit moved him so deeply that he spoke on the link between poverty and ignorance at the Athenaeum, an organization dedicated to educating workers, in Manchester. It was while he was in Manchester that the idea of transforming his impressions of the Ragged School into a work of fiction planted itself in his imagination. That October he plunged into a new story called “A Christmas Carol.” And while his social concerns may have inspired him to write the tale, it was his empty pockets that provided the motivation to undertake his new project.

Lately, Dickens’ financial situation had become dire since the sales of his latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, were floundering. Dickens felt sure that a story like “A Christmas Carol” would appeal to readers at Christmas time and thus generate needed cash. For he wasn’t only a good writer but a sensible businessman.

Dickens blazed through the writing of his new story, completing the manuscript in only six weeks. The project seized hold of him, inspiring him to work from morning until late at night. He passed some of these nights striding as many as 20 miles through the shadowy, still London streets, meditating on the story. In a letter to a friend he confessed that the work so charged his emotions, he found himself alternately laughing and weeping, an experience he transferred to his main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, in his story.

Dickens financed the publication of the slim little book himself, insisting on illustrations and a quality binding. It appeared in bookshops on December 19, 1843. Dickens complained that booksellers seemed uninterested in promoting the story. Nevertheless, the entire first printing of 6,000 copies sold out in less than a week. After subtracting what it had cost him to produce the book, though, Dickens earned very little from its first printing.

But Dickens managed to celebrate Christmas merrily that year, exclaiming in a letter to a friend that he had rarely experienced a Christmas season so full of dining, dancing, theater-going, party games, and good cheer. He even attended a children's party where he entertained the assembled company with magic tricks, to all appearances dumping the raw ingredients of a plum pudding into a friend's hat and pulling out the finished product. The children’s party also appeared in his story. It was as if Dickens, himself, had become Scrooge and relished in the joy of Christmas.

So while writers may write about more mundane subjects throughout the year, it’s often Christmas that brings out the best in them. And while it may be too late to compose your own Christmas story for this year, there’s always 2015.
Merry Christmas!