“All we truly need is love,” an interview with bestselling author Lily King

While King didn’t get her literary start in later life, she’s keen to encourage older adults to put pen to paper if they feel the urge.

“There have been so many amazing novels written by authors over 50,” she says. “I would always want to encourage someone to never feel that it’s too late – because it isn’t too late. You always have things to say, and you have more to say when you get older. I hope that anyone who has a real impulse to do it can just let go of those fears, plunge in, and have fun – because it really can be fun if you just let go of everything else.”

King’s main advice to aspiring writers is to create a schedule and stick to it. This can help you push through critical and negative feelings that so often arise when beginning new projects.

“It’s not necessarily going to feel good, especially when you’re first starting out. And you have to leave your emotions and [inner] critic outside the door. You really have to push through a lot to start writing. It might take a couple of days, a week, two weeks, but I can promise you that once you get over that hurdle, if you can stay on track with your schedule, you will never look back.”

As for her own writing, King is looking forward to her next life chapter to embrace the learning mindset that marked her early career.

“When I wrote my first book, I was so in deep with literature, and I was such a student,” she says. “For a lot of my books, I’ve been raising kids, and they have always been my first priority, so I don’t feel like I’ve been able to be the student that I would always like to be. Now my kids are grown and out of the house, I feel like I can get back to that a little bit more.”

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