Here is really good news: for many of us don't even BEGIN to rev up until after fifty. I wrote my first book at 58, it won three prizes. Part of why, which I might relate to you, is that I spent fifty years learning how to write (ya think?). Permission to have taken this long to get this good at X is part of emotional maturity. Saying I'm too old for this shit and relegating ones self to the couch and endless reruns of GOT isn't. Beauty and youth- such as they are or aren't, and mostly aren't, are meaningless in the face of what we build to give us grace and gravitas.