A Nice Success Story for Us Writers Over 21

Take heart if things are taking you longer than you want them to. The New York Times Magazine ran a story August 1 about Susanna Clarke, author of the forthcoming Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. This book has more buzz on it than a hive of bumblebees, is being published by Bloomsbury (Harry Potter's British publisher), and is widely being called "Harry Potter for adults." It is, as you can imagine, expected to do extremely well, Da Vinci code/Harry Potter well.

Susanna Clarke is in her mid-forties, and it took her ten years to write the book, mostly in the mornings before going to her job as a cookbook editor. Her own story is full of simple, step-by-step, one-thing-leading-to-another tales of meeting the right person, which led to her meeting the next right person, which led to her doing the next right thing, etc. And, of course, of her working hard to make her writing the best it could be.

And she's got lots of gray hair! I feel positively inspired by her myself.