{"id":9992,"date":"2026-02-21T16:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T16:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=9992"},"modified":"2026-02-21T16:53:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T16:53:57","slug":"the-late-bloomer-at-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/the-late-bloomer-at-56\/","title":{"rendered":"The Late Bloomer at 56"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 1:38 a.m. today, I turned 56 years old. The thing is, I don\u2019t feel fifty-six. Maybe this is because, for the past ten years, I\u2019ve been writ\u00ading about char\u00adac\u00adters 16\u201317 years old and some of their sense of invin\u00adci\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty has rubbed off on me. All I know is, it real\u00adly does\u00adn\u2019t seem pos\u00adsi\u00adble that forty years have passed since I was the age of Avery Craig and his friends.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/a>I think I\u2019m doing pret\u00adty well for some\u00adone 56. I have most of my hair and all of my teeth (well, count\u00ading a few implants). I just got back from the gym, where I climbed 90 flights of stairs (on the Stair\u00adMas\u00adter) in less than half an hour, and a cou\u00adple weeks ago, I cross-coun\u00adtry skied sev\u00aden miles in two hours (in sub\u00adze\u00adro weath\u00ader).<\/p>\n

Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnate\u00adly, because of the cold weath\u00ader, less activ\u00adi\u00adty, win\u00adter depres\u00adsion, and the amount of work I\u2019ve had to do on Boda\u00adcious\u00adly<\/em>, I\u2019m the heav\u00adi\u00adest I\u2019ve been in years (I\u2019m not telling you the num\u00adber), but I car\u00adry the weight well (even dis\u00adtri\u00adb\u00adu\u00adtion you might say), and I know that with spring around the cor\u00adner, I\u2019ll drop twen\u00adty pounds in a cou\u00adple of months.<\/p>\n

On the pos\u00adi\u00adtive side, with the excep\u00adtion of occa\u00adsion\u00adal aspirin or ibupro\u00adfen, I take absolute\u00adly NO med\u00adica\u00adtion. Zero. Nada. Noth\u00ading.<\/p>\n

<\/a>I\u2019m also 100% stone-cold sober and have been for nine years. Com\u00ading from a guy who used to love a dozen dif\u00adfer\u00adent beers (includ\u00ading Stel\u00adla Artois, the orig\u00adi\u00adnal Bass Ale, and the now-defunct Dock Street Pil\u00adsner), chugged Mak\u00ader\u2019s Mark Ken\u00adtucky Straight Bour\u00adbon Whiskey for tooth abcess\u00ades; par\u00adtied with a tribe of Native Amer\u00adi\u00adcans in Mon\u00adtana; got in a barfight in Old Port, Port\u00adland, Maine; swilled cham\u00adpagne and sang in the streets of Paris at mid\u00adnight with Parisians; and once bought a round for the house at every pub he vis\u00adit\u00aded in Lon\u00addon, Strat\u00adford Upon Avon, New\u00adcas\u00adtle, Glas\u00adgow, and Inverness\u2014this means some\u00adthing.<\/p>\n

<\/a>But I\u2019m most proud of where I am in terms of my writ\u00ading. At 56, and (rel\u00ada\u00adtive\u00adly) fit and sober, I\u2019m at the height of my pow\u00aders as a nov\u00adel\u00adist. At the risk of sound\u00ading immod\u00adest, as I\u2019ve been pol\u00adish\u00ading Episodes III through V of Boda\u00adcious\u00adly<\/em> for pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtion, I\u2019ve been so impressed by so much of it that I can\u2019t believe I wrote it.<\/p>\n

Back in my 20s, I read that a writer\u2019s most pro\u00adduc\u00adtive peri\u00adod is from his mid-40s to his mid-60s, and here I am, smack in the mid\u00addle of that peri\u00adod, and I can tell you, it\u2019s true. Expe\u00adri\u00adence, sub\u00adject mat\u00adter, clar\u00adi\u00adty of think\u00ading, tech\u00adnique, emo\u00adtion\u00adal depth, phys\u00adi\u00adcal health, and lack of con\u00adcern about what oth\u00ader peo\u00adple think of me or my work\u2014all cylin\u00adders are fir\u00ading at opti\u00admal effi\u00adcien\u00adcy. I\u2019m doing my own thing, and I\u2019m out where no one can touch me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m unequiv\u00ado\u00adcal\u00adly a late bloomer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After decades of hard work and strug\u00adgle, I\u2019ve final\u00adly reached MY time. This year and next are mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 1:38 a.m. today, I turned 56 years old. The thing is, I don\u2019t feel fifty-six. Maybe this is because, for the past ten years,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[690,3,592,57,47,591,459,58,48,32,46,13,233],"tags":[698,120,697,94,696,590,339,96,155,302,221,92,355],"class_list":["post-9992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bodaciously-true-totally-awesome","category-craft","category-cross-country-skiing","category-driving-in-the-uk-travel","category-england","category-hobbies","category-montana","category-paris","category-scotland","category-travel","category-united-kingdom","category-writers","category-writing-life","tag-698","tag-authors","tag-birthday","tag-chris-orcutt","tag-late-bloomer","tag-late-bloomers","tag-novel-writing","tag-novelist","tag-orcutt","tag-writer","tag-writers-life","tag-writers-2","tag-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9992"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10002,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992\/revisions\/10002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}