What’s on Your Bucket List?

by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1

I started my bucket list when I was thirty-five. I wanted to write and eventually get published. If I had known it would take 33 years, would I have pursued my dream?

I think so, because I don’t think I had a choice. I may have been thirty-five when I realized I was born to write, but once I knew it, nothing could stop me. I think most writers are that way.

Some writers take even longer to realize it than I did. Often they think they’re too old to start a new career.

Is there an age limit to what we can do?

…Bear with me a minute—I’m thinking. Part of me wants to say NO! But then I think about how I used to climb trees, and while in my mind, I think I could still do it, I’m not sure I want to, unless there’s a bear chasing me.

Physically, we might get to a place in our lives where we can’t do what we once did, but there are so many other things we can do. One year at Christmas my mother learned to text. She was ninety. She had a Facebook page when she passed away at ninety-three. She always wanted to be challenged and so do I. That’s the key, I think. The desire to stretch ourselves.

I hear it now. But how would I start?

That’s the easy part. Be it writing a book or learning how to use a computer. Take a class. Did you know after age sixty, about 60% of accredited colleges offer a waiver for senior students? And at most colleges you can audit a class for free. Check it out here and here. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to learn the nuts and bolts of how to do it.

I believed God called me to write, and not just any old story, but suspense stories. Except I wasn’t having any luck with them. I was sixty-five when I went to my first writing retreat, Deep Thinkers taught by our own Susan May Warren. I had been writing for almost thirty years with success in writing short pieces but had not gotten any results from my novels. I was making the same mistakes over and over because I didn’t have anyone to tell me what I was doing wrong…or right.

But at the retreat I learned so much and continued to return each year for four years total. After the third year, I got an agent and a publisher and sold my first book. Shadows of the Past was published one week after I turned 69.

So, you can do it! But you need a desire as well as discipline to do what it takes to learn the craft of writing…and then, you’ll be ready when God opens the door.

I’ve completed one series—The Logan Point Series, written two Heartwarming books for Harlequin, and completed three books in my next series, Memphis Cold Case Novels. All since 2013. If I can do it, so can you!

By the way, Justice Buried, the second Memphis Cold Case novel releases tomorrow!

TWEETABLES


What’s on Your #BucketList? by @PTBradley1 on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2wqjm77

Is writing on your bucket list?~ @PTBradley1 on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2wqjm77

When do you decide to throw in the towel?~ @PTBradley1 on @NovelRocket #writing http://bit.ly/2wqjm77

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Justice Buried

In an effort to get her security consulting business off the ground, Kelsey Allen has been spending a lot of time up in the air, rappelling down buildings and climbing through windows to show business owners their vulnerabilities to thieves. When she is hired to pose as a conservator at the Pink Palace Museum in order to test their security weaknesses after some artifacts go missing, she's ecstatic. But when her investigative focus turns from theft to murder, Kelsey knows she's out of her league--and possibly in the cross hairs. When blast-from-the-past Detective Brad Hollister is called in to investigate, Kelsey may find that he's the biggest security threat yet . . . to her heart.

Patricia Bradley lives in North Mississippi with her rescue kitty Suzy and loves to write suspense with a twist of romance. Her books include the Logan Point series and two Harlequin Heartwarming romances. Justice Delayed, a Memphis Cold Case Novel, is the first book in her next series and it releases January 31, 2017. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.