"When I am 53..."

I'm in the midst of watching the film Becoming Jane, a rather fanciful, speculative take on Jane Austen's life (shaping her biography to emphasize the connections to her novels). Seeing it has made me go blog-hopping amongst Austen blogs, something I haven't done in a while.

One the blog Austenprose, I found a clever post with a quote from Stella Gibbon's novel Cold Comfort Farm. I haven't read that book in years, though I remember it was quite funny. I hadn't discovered Austen at the time I read it, so I'm sure this bit (which I'm excerpting from the slightly longer passage they posted) passed right over my head. But oh, it made me laugh now, especially since I'm just 2 plus weeks out from my 40th birthday...and find myself thinking the usual thoughts about what shape my writing life might take in the next decade.

I think it’s degrading of you, Flora,’ cried her friend at breakfast. ‘Do you truly mean that you don’t ever want to work at anything? ‘

Her friend replied after some thought: ‘Well, when I am 53 or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting, of course. For the next 30 years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, ‘Collecting material’. No one can object to that. Besides, so I shall be.’ (Cold Comfort Farm, p. 20)

I have to change Flora's words, of course. I don't have 30 years or so to "collect material" -- only about 13 if I plan to manage my Persuasion-like masterpiece by the time I'm 53.

I'd better get cracking!