Welcome And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, the show where we talk honestly about what it actually takes to keep showing up for ourselves, our minds, and our lives. I'm Yusuf, and today's guest brings something this show does not get to explore often enough. A perspective shared by time, lived experience, and the courage to begin something deeply personal is in a season where most people are told to slow down. Our guest is Paula Penarilud. Today, we are talking about writing in the senior years. About what creativity does for the mind when it isn't tied to ambition or career. About identity, voice, and the quiet rebellion of starting something just because it matters to you. And by the end of this episode, I hope you walk away with a softer relationship with the question of when is it too late? Because the answer might be very different than you think. With that, I welcome my guest Paula to the show. Thank you so much.

Retirement Sparks A First Novel

SPEAKER_00 1:23

So, Paula, before we open up the deeper conversation, I want to begin somewhere somewhere a little gently. So writing is such a personal thing. And what was the moment you realized you wanted to write? Or was it that finally, or what was it that finally gave you the permission to begin?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Well, you know, you you go through your life and you look at retirement as this thing out there that you have to get to. And you're so busy you don't think about what is that gonna look like when I get to retirement. And I got into it, and my husband was also retiring, and I was like, Well, what can I do? I want to do something new, I want to do something different. And I had never been a writer in my life, but I was an avid reader and I loved historical romance. I loved the escapism of it, I loved the happily ever after of it, and I thought, I think I could do this. And I was very, very blessed to meet a good friend of mine who was an editor, and she and her husband kind of gave me the courage to go ahead, sit down and write a book.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Wow. And uh, can you describe how was that? How was your experience writing your first book?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I had no idea what I was doing. My friend said to me, you know, go ahead, write this story. I'll look it over because she and her husband would get hundreds of books a week to look through. And she said, most of them I knew by the first 10 pages that they weren't that good. I sat down in two weeks and gave her a very rough draft. And I thought she was going to tell me, forget it. This is not your thing to do. And she got back to me and she said, you know what, this is pretty good. And I said, but my English is atrocious. And she said, Well, there's that, but we can fix it. So that's how I got started with it. And I loved it. I love the creative, creative aspect of it. I love making up the characters, giving the characters personalities, setting them in different formats. And for me, it was just a real outlet, and it gave quality to my retirement years.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah.

You Are Not Too Late

SPEAKER_00 4:02

And ma'am, there is a misconception I think a lot of people quietly carry, that creativity is something you either pursued early or missed entirely. That writing specially belongs to people who started decades ago. So I'm curious what you have come to understand about that now that you are writing in this season of your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

You know, it's a it's a funny thing about that because I've had a lot of people that are seniors that have heard that I sat down to write and they said, Oh, you you must have been doing this for years. And I said, No, I was a nurse in my career. My last English class was 40 plus years ago with Penn State University. I had never given thought to doing that. But I felt that for me, this is was a creative outlet I could pursue. I mean, I I don't have artistic ability in the sense that I could sit down and paint. I mean, my idea of art is stick people. But I felt like this was an outlet for that creative side of my personality. And, you know, the worst thing you can do in retirement is to think that you're just gonna sit down and just relax and enjoy this. As my 100-year-old aunt would tell you, when you stop using your mind, it turns to mush. And I didn't want that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Okay. And uh what would you gently say to someone listening who has wanted to write for years but keep telling themselves they have, you know, they are too late for it.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

You know, everybody has a story. And a lot of seniors that I have spoken to have said, you know, I would love to write my memoirs for my children or my grandchildren. You know, you realize when you look back on your life that you've had a lot of learned experiences, either at work with family members that you knew that your children or your grandchildren will never know. And to think that you can't write is crazy. You sit down and you write. You know, it may not be the next great American novel, but sit down, write it, see where it takes you. I mean, the idea that you have to sit down and have a whole plan mapped out and know exactly where you're gonna go, even if you're writing memoirs, you never do. You just sit down, you write, and you do it. And you know, and I think seniors discount those years of experience. And they we all could use those years of experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah. And that is a such a tender thing to hear because so many people are walking around grieving creative dreams, they think have expired. When they they've only been waiting.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they you you have to this the perfect time to do that is in retirement. You don't have those pressures of work and uh family at home and all of these other things. You don't have time to be creative then. It's it's great when you're retired and you have that time to pursue that aspect of your your personality or your mind. I mean, you know, even if it's it's prostage or knitting or whatever that thing is that you would like to try or do, the perfect time to do it is when you get to retirement. I mean, you know, and and it's so much easier now because when I started writing, the first thing I did was I Googled, how do I write a romance novel? And the first one that I wrote was that mechanical. I mean, they told me in the first 800 words, try to get a hook in. And I was like, a hook? What is a hook? Then I had to Google that. I mean, it was that mechanical. Now I sit down and I write the stories, they come to me. I'm a I'm a pantser, I don't have anything planned out. I just write it and let it go where it takes me.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah.

Writing History That Feels Current

SPEAKER_00 8:40

And writing has a way of revealing things to us that we did not know we were carrying, like memories, regrets, joys, part of our stories. So, as you have been writing in these later years, what has the page started showing you about your own life that maybe surprised you?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Well, you know, it's a little hard to relate that for my life because the era that I write about tends to be that Jane Austen era in early 1800s, England. And that happens to be one of my challenges is making that time frame and making those characters and those people relatable to an audience today. And, you know, one of the things it has shined a light on for me is realizing how tough it was for women back then. Even if you had status and class, you know, and money, you were very much in a box. And even in the world in which I was raised, I mean, women sort of tended to go, I'm gonna be a nurse, I'm gonna be a teacher. That whole world has opened up so much. And I like to write a little bit more empowered women in the stories that I write.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Now, that is so quietly powerful, you know. Writing does not just record a life, it helps us understand the life we we have actually been living.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

It does, absolutely. I mean, like I say, even if it's something that was in the early 1800s to now, you still can make those characters in ways that are relatable for people that are reading those books to see themselves in it.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

And for someone in their later years who feel a quiet pull toward writing or any creative practice, but they are not sure how to begin.

How To Start Without Perfection

SPEAKER_00 11:02

So, how does that beginning actually look like in real life? Like the honest version, not the polished version.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Well, for me, I was blessed to have a person to help me in my friend who was an editor. However, she did recommend books. I read some books about writing, and you know, got a lot of little helpful hints, not everything I could use, but a lot of little helpful hints. And it is so much better in this day and age because you can Google it. You know, you can get online, you can look it up, you can see how it's done, you know, you can go to classes, you can do whatever it is you want to do. If you're just looking to write the family memoirs, which which a lot of seniors are looking to do, there are actually books out there that give you a format basically, and you're kind of filling in the blanks. And they also ask you questions that elicit memories or illicit ideas that you may have forgotten or not thought about that you can add to those books. So, you know, those are all formats that as seniors you can follow.

The Marathon Middle And Staying Motivated

SPEAKER_00 12:23

And what is the inner conversation you have had to keep having with yourself to keep showing up to the page, you know, especially on the harder days?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Well, you know, it's funny when you start a book, you think, oh, I've got this great idea, I've got these characters, I've got them in places, and they're doing things. And, you know, writing a novel is a marathon because it is thousands and thousands of words, and it could be 33 chapters long, which is what most of mine are. And I kind of do great going out of the blocks about the first 10 chapters or so, because I love to introduce characters and personalities and you know, do some research, trying to put them into different, you know, situations. And then you get into those chapter 15 to 25, and because you kind of know where you want to take the end. And it's like, well, what am I gonna do with these people for the next 10 chapters? And one piece of advice I got from all of the things that I read on writing a novel is number one, if it doesn't advance the story, don't write it because people are gonna lose interest because you can't keep saying the same thing over and over in every single chapter. And the second piece of advice I got that was so helpful, which was from the great writer Lisa Klypus, was that you can always do research. You know, anything that you're writing, even if it's a family memoir, and you want to add some color and say, well, you know, Uncle John had this farm and we farm milk house. Well, you know, you can look up what was it like for a milk farmer back in the 1940s, you know, just to give your family members a little bit of color as to a taste of what that person's slice must have been like. And that's something I like to do in my own books. I like to do this research because the more things change, the more they say stay the same. And I can look up things that were happening in that time that are actually very similar to things that are happening now. So, you know, that's how I like to add that kind of color and whatnot. And keep it going, keep myself motivated. You know, I like to make it interesting for myself. If I'm just writing different versions of the same book, it's not too interesting.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yes. That is such such that was such an honest answer that I loved it because the hardest part of any creative practice, it usually is not the skill, it is the permission and the drive that you want to actually do it.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because the whole time I was writing the first one and even the second one, I was thinking, you know, Paula, who is gonna want to read this book? You know, this is just you drawing down all these things from your own crazy head. And who's really gonna want to read this? Are you do you really want to do this? And the other thing is when you're writing, you're exposing elements of yourself in public. Even if that part of yourself is totally made up story and has no relevance to you, there's still those characters or aspects of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah. Yes.

Creativity As Mental Wellness

SPEAKER_00 16:06

And one of the quiet gifts of writing in the senior years is that it isn't tied to a career or external success or the noise of building an age. It is, I think, pure and sure is yours, like only yours. So can you talk about what does that for the mind and the spirit do? And when you create something that does not have to perform.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, for me, I don't get as much joy as I do when I have people walk up to me and say, I just love that book. When are you gonna write another one? And I'm like, you really liked it that much? I'm I I'm shocked. I'm shocked when they say it. I still am. And it's, you know, I'm like, I I'm glad that I can share this thing that I enjoy so much, you know, and it it's just it's just such a pleasure for me. So, and you know, and it does give you confidence, it gives you a great deal of confidence to do other things, try other things. You never know what you can succeed at until you get out there and try. And like I said before, there's no better time to do it than when you're retired and you don't have all these other things that are taking up your time and your energy and your creativity.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah, I love that you don't separate creativity from mental wellness because they have never really been separate separate, have they?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

No, they haven't. You know, it it you it is it goes hand in hand. I mean, when you're you feel well mentally, you feel well physically, you can be more creative. And vice versa. I mean, if you're you're not doing anything and you're kind of living the same repetitive day after day after day, you can't be creative. I mean, it just stifles it. So, you know, being able to sit down, being able to type, to get into all of these new worlds and people and learn all these different things, you need that mental stimulation. And it's more important for seniors than for any other age group. You know, like I say, my aunt told me, you don't use it, you lose it. Your brain turns to mush. And that's true.

unknown 18:41

Yeah.

Where To Find Paula And Final Encouragement

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Paula, for people who are listening and who want to connect with you or want to read your works, where can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

My website is Paula P A U L A Panorello P A N A-R I E L L O dot com. And you can get my books on Bookbaby, Amazon, Booknook, any of the different popular sites that are available.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes, so just go and check those. Paula, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

You know, I just want to reiterate that whole idea that, you know, retirement cannot be at the time in your life where you think, okay, I've got here. I'm just gonna sit in this chair and, you know, count out the days of my life. You're gonna get bored very, very quickly. And you also think, oh, I'm gonna travel, but there's gonna be a long time in between trips or whatever else you're gonna do. You have to find those things that keep your interest, whether it's it's going to your local senior center, sitting down, typing up books, you know, playing pickleball, whatever those activities are. That's what keeps your mind healthy. That's what keeps your body healthy, that's what keeps you going.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Paula, this has been such a beautiful and grounding conversation. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your show. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Thank you, Johan. And to everyone listening. If something in this conversation reached you today, I hope you let it stay. Maybe there is a creative something inside you that's been waiting quietly for years. You just have to start because the truth is the years you have lived so far were not a delay, they were a preparation. And whatever you make in this season of your life will carry a depth that only time can give. This has been Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I am Yusuf. Be gentle with yourself this week. Pick up the pen if you have been waiting to. We'll be here when you come back.