Our thanks to author Laura McNeill for this guest post. With NaNoWriMo coming up in less than six short weeks, we hope this will give you the mindset to get rolling if you’re still sitting on the sidelines – maybe it’s time you jumped up to write novel!

Often, when I attend writing conferences, there’s one statement that commonly comes up in conversations. I’ve heard the phrase mentioned wistfully. It’s also been spoken with hope, and with regret. It’s been shared with me in a quiet whisper and spoken out loud, accompanied by a laugh and a roll of the eyes.

“I’ve always wanted to write a novel—but it’s probably too late.”

My advice? Go for it! There’s no time like the present!

That encouragement is usually met with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. I can only guess that some people are thinking: “Well, that’s easy to say.”

Certainly, it is easy to say, but the sentiment is also coming from someone who took the long road—and several detours—to begin writing seriously. In college, I majored in English literature and dreamed of writing stories, but instead, I took the more logical route of studying journalism in graduate school.

In my six years of television news, I chased down news stories, learned to interview, edit, and write on deadline. But after six years of working a brutal 2 am – 10 am shift with my then three-year-old, I hung up my microphone for what I believed was a more normal career—pharmaceutical sales.

It was only after my second son was born, and I had four months off for maternity leave, did I get serious about penning fiction. I began writing my first novel at the dining room table, and occasionally, my walk-in closet—the house’s most soundproof and private space. I wished, as I struggled through those 80,000 words, that I had started writing ten years earlier.

But then, I considered these later-in-life success stories:

• Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes was published when he was 66.
• Bram Stoker wrote Dracula when he was 50.
• It took Helen Hooven Santmyer fifty years to write And Ladies of the Club and she finished it while living in a nursing home at the age of 80+ years
• Paul Torday’s first novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, was published when he was 59. It was made into a major motion picture.

And as aspiring authors, we have a choice: Keep dreaming or start writing. I decided on the latter. Here are five reasons you should, too:

1. Amassing experience over a lifetime means a having a wealth of ideas and material to tap into when you begin writing.

2. Writing is an art that can never be fully mastered. Relish that challenge.

3. Consider that complex stories, like fine wine, can require a long period of fermentation.

4. If like to experiment and learn by doing, it may take some time for your writing to reach its true level.

5. Experimental artists and writers build their skills gradually over the course of their careers, improving their work gradually over long periods.

Just to drive my point home, remember that Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at forty-nine. Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe at fifty-eight.

So, what are you waiting for? The time to start writing is now!

Laura McNeill, author of Center of Gravity, adores hot coffee, good manners, the color pink, and novels that keep her reading past midnight. She believes in the beauty of words, paying it forward, and that nerds rule the world. She lives near Tuscaloosa, Alabama with her two sons. You can find Laura Tweeting @Lauramcneillbks and blogging at http://www.lauramcneill.com/. Center of Gravity was released July 14^th by HarperCollins. Laura’s next domestic suspense novel, Sister Dear, will be released April 19^th, 2016.