I had my success too soon. Three books published with Scribner's in New York before I was 30.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.
I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.
I'm not an overnight success. My early publishing history, through my first five books, was unfortunate in many respects, typified by a couple of short anecdotes.
I didn't get one word published until I was well into my 30s. But I always tried.
I realized very young that I loved reading and wanted to do something related to books/reading for a living. I didn't think of publishing, really, until I was out of college.
In college, I wrote newspaper articles and songs. Then, on my 21st birthday, I sold my first book. It was a nonfiction book about women pirates - 'Pirates in Petticoats.' After that, I was a book writer for good.
I finished my first novel - it was around 300 pages long - when I was 16. Wrote one more before I got out of high school, then wrote the first Lincoln Perry novel when I was 19. It didn't sell, but I liked the character and I knew the world so I tried what was, in my mind, a sequel. Wrote that when I was 20, and that one made it.
I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.
I wrote my first book when I was in my late thirties.
When I was turning 40, I felt that there were no books out there that hit the spot in terms of what I wanted to read.