Books

Half of romance readers are over fifty, yet few novels reflect their vivid lives. This roadmap shows you how to craft, edit, publish, and market a vibrant late-life love story. Your adventures as a late-life romance author begin here.

Lynette Reiling’s guide to the second half is built on William Bridges’ three-phase model of transition — the ending, the disorienting middle, the new beginning — and is meant to be read years before you think you need it. The middle gets the most attention and the most useful writing: the stretch Bridges called the Neutral Zone, where, as Reiling puts it, “I am no longer who I was, but do not yet know who I will become.” Eleven “script writing” tools follow, with questions and exercises for putting yourself back at the center of your own life. Practical rather than inspirational, and several readers describe working through it in groups.