The truly beautiful thing about writing is that it’s never too late to start and you can become a published author at any age.

There is, of course, a lot of gatekeeping in the traditional publishing world (as there should be), but thankfully age isn’t as much of a limiter here. Other forms of art do involve a bias towards younger artists that manifests as a great filter.

Take for example the artistic pursuit of acting. Roles dwindle as actors age and they’re eventually shoe-horned into minor roles or none at all. Meryl Streep, one of the most awarded actors of all time, once talked about turning 40 and suddenly she was offered only three witch roles instead of any main characters or love interests.

I have often worried about choosing a pursuit in life because our time in this world is fleeting. I am sometimes haunted by this line from Rust Cohle in True Detective: “life is barely long enough to get good at one thing.”

Many authors have started writing later in life, and after having pursued different careers. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a school teacher and farmer for most of her life, only turning to writing at the encouragement of her daughter, in her 60s when she started the Little House series.

Toni Morrison and Mark Twain started in their early 40s. Morrison was an editor at Random House before she wrote The Bluest Eye. She went on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mark Twain wasn’t published until age 41 and he went on to write Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which are required reading to this day.

Let’s not forget about J.R.R. Tolkien, who is credited with inventing the modern fantasy genre with his books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He started writing at 45. If he had not written the story he had within him, then who would have paved the way for cultural touchstones like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire or Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time?

But the greatest example of “it’s never too late” is George Orwell, who wrote 1984 on his deathbed. He was dying of tuberculosis when he penned the most influential tale of propaganda and authoritarianism of the 20th century. He said the book “wouldn’t have been so gloomy if I had not been so ill.” He lived to see the book released to critical acclaim and success in 1949.

We truly have until the very last breath to write the story that is within each of us. It’s never too late.