Don’t worry, you won’t need to count the candles on your cake for this one.
After you’ve reached a certain age, at least until you’re so ancient that you’ve gained bragging rights, people stop asking how old you are. For me, this happened around the time wrinkles started to spread from the corners of my eyes like neglected cracks on a car windshield. Avoiding the topic of age is fine with me. I’ve always been grateful not to be reminded of my own mortality. I’ve also gotten increasingly sensitive to how long I’ve spent on this planet without making much of a difference. And to be completely honest, I worry about ageism in the writing world, where professionals may look down on anyone who isn’t a wunderkind with tremendous future potential.
So it’s kind of weird that I’m asking such an intrusive question. I think I need to rephrase it. What I really mean is, how old are you in your mind? What age is the person your memories most frequently revisit? These might be your best memories, but they could just as well be traumatic ones. That is, I’m not asking what age you want to be (twenties for me, please—backpacking and trail-building in the wilderness with seemingly limitless energy and nary an ache). Nor am I asking what age you feel yourself to be (I’m guessing about eighty for me on days when my back hurts from sitting, my hips ache from walking, my elbow stings from lopping weeds, my foot twinges for no apparent reason, and my thumb throbs from an old pinecone-throwing injury).
I most often see myself as about eleven years old, one of the happiest times in my life. At that tender age, I was still young enough to feel secure in my place—surrounded by family and friends, immersed in school, music, and nature. But I was old enough to question things that were happening around me and to realize that the world was a heck of a lot bigger than I’d thought it was just the year before. I wouldn’t lose my best friend for another year, and I wouldn’t lose my ability to play music for nine more. I didn’t yet suffer from teenage angst, and I didn’t have to deal with the high pressures of academia or adulting. I spent a lot of time in imaginary worlds—stories that never left my head, though the complex imagery that accompanied them sometimes made it onto paper.
This, then, is why I write middle grade fiction. Pre-teen kids deal with huge issues, for sure, but they’re still young enough to be resilient, hopeful, and curious. They’re at a prime age to go on fantastic adventures—both real and imagined. They treat the obstacles they encounter with humor, courage, and surprising wisdom. They make such fun protagonists!
My husband says his thoughts most frequently take him back to high school, a time when he enjoyed nerding out with a wide variety of creative friends. I’m guessing he’d focus on YA if he were a writer. My aunt, who writes women’s fiction, says she revisits her thirties when she met the love of her life (and my uncle chooses his forties for the very same sweet reason). My eleven-year-old dog doesn’t say, but he acts like he’s about three. Maybe picture books would work best for him.
My question for everyone else remains the same: how old is the you that your mind replays most? Was this a good time or a difficult time for you when you actually lived it? If you write, do your protagonists tend to be that age as well?
As we make our way through our lives, maybe our most memorable age will give us a better understanding of the whole. That’s my hope, anyway.
Happy Tales!
Flights of Fancy 