 It's my birthday. I know you probably don't care, but it's my birthday. So I'm not gonna tell you how old I am, but what I am gonna tell you is that I'm at about the age that most major characters are in the first episode of a major sitcom. So with that in mind, I am considering this my transition into my sitcom years. I'll be this way. Groovy. And also cool. Something I have found myself thinking the older I get and something you might end up thinking to yourself in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 70s. I don't know, Guy. Is am I leaving it too late for a full writing career? I realize that probably sounds pretty stupid thinking that your 20s is too late for anything, except maybe dating high schoolers. That's still pretty creepy. But it is what it is. Seeing another year pass by with no tangible evidence that you're any closer to your goals can be pretty disheartening. I guess it's part of the human condition. Well, I recently fired up the dial-up and did some browsing through the World Wide Web. Well, let me tell you guys, I found something that is truly, and I know this is hard to believe, but no sarcasm intended, motivated me. It made me feel really dang good. Like sitting down when you take a shower. A lot of really well-known and wildly successful authors actually didn't start their writing careers until later on in their adult lives. Some of them didn't start writing at all until their 40s and onward. Don't believe me? Well, I've got proof, so you're gonna look pretty stupid in a minute. At just 24 years old, here are some authors that burst onto the scene. Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Leo Tolstoy. So that's still pretty young. I know we're still in the early 20s, but bear with me as we work our way up. At 26 years old, we have HP Lovecraft, Shakespeare, Alice Walker, and Roald Dahl. 27 years old, and we're entering the sitcom years now guys. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Alexandra Dumas. Just before breaking into their 30s, at 29 years young, we have Emily Bronte, T.S. Eliot, J.D. Salinger, and H.G. Wells. 30 years old. The age that teenagers dread and seniors miss. Agatha Christie, who by the way, is tied with Shakespeare as the highest selling author of all time. That's pretty crazy. George Orwell, Haruki Murakami. Skipping ahead just a bit, we have J.K. Rowling, who broke out at 32. Virginia Woolf at 33. Harper Lee at 34. Jules Verne at 35. And Jane Austen at 36. Anthony Burgess and Toni Morrison didn't find big success until 39. And Maya Angelou and Mark Twain found their success at 41. Heard of J.R.R. Tolkien? The inventor of... Second breakfast. Well, he didn't publish The Hobbit until he was 45. Bram Stoker, one of the most iconic names in horror, didn't publish Dracula until he was 50. And Laura Engels Wilder didn't publish Little House in the Big Woods until she was 65. Are you feeling motivated yet? If not, I have one more for you. And this person is not only the oldest person to ever publish their first book, but they hold a Guinness World Record for exactly that. Bertha Wood published Fresh Aherent Fun, the story of Blackpool Holiday Camp, on her 100th birthday. If that doesn't drive home the point that you still have time to be an author, no matter how old you are, I don't know what will. What can I say, guys? I'm getting old now. I do wood carvings. I have a chair in the shower, and my back always hurts. And only one of those things was a lie. I don't have any books out yet, but I'm going to have one out soon. And I can only hope that the older I get and the more my mustache starts looking less like an ironic statement, that I can write even half as many books as a lot of these authors have. These old timers. Am I right? Fellow youths, here's to the sitcom years. Happy birthday to me and happy birthday to Richard Gere. He got to kiss Julia Roberts, and I think that's pretty cool.