- Not Invisible
- Posts
- Someone Sees You
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Photo by Ed Robertson, Unsplash
I “recently” (perhaps not that recently) attended a book festival that was the kick in the rear I needed to get back to this writing. I’m always inspired by listening to successful authors talk — but when the concluding session of this fun “Hamptons Whodunit” weekend touched on the theme of feeling invisible, I vowed that no matter what, I would get back to this newsletter.
That was the beginning of April.
Writing for “fun” has always been a struggle for me. After you’ve written all day long for work (did I promise an update on that?!), sitting down to write something personal can be a bit of a drag.
So as post ideas came and went — advertising opportunities, too — they remained un-materialized.
But this feeling of invisibility stops for no one.
So six weeks too late, I finally wanted to share what I learned about my industry — and the state of “older” writers within it — from the great Tess Gerritsen, an international best-selling author of almost 30 years. If Tess is touching on these themes in her books, which sell millions of copies, then her recent success with these themes is testament to the fact that this era of invisibility isn’t just a writer thing.
It’s an everybody thing.
Tess’s books are page-turners, and some have been made into movies, although not in awhile. The TV show Rizzoli & Isles, starring Angie Harmon back in 2010, was her biggest on-screen hit so far. (This will matter in a minute.)
Rizzoli & Isles, meanwhile, was ultimately cancelled despite being TNT’s top show because it featured two 50+ females.
The prolific writer’s newest crime fiction series is a three-book visit to the remote town of Purity, Maine, where a small band of charming former CIA agents have retired. While not even the bitter cold and isolation can protect them from dangerous international entanglements, the toughest issue that the very tough main character is dealing with is…yup.
Feeling invisible.
“When you are over the hill, what you did in your previous life is of little interest to most people,” this former spy Maggie explains. In her case, it is both what she needs/has sought out — and what she grapples with.
“I needed to be this age to know what it’s like to feel invisible,” Tess said during her talk in the Hamptons. She also announced that her series — named The Martini Club — was not only sold to Amazon Prime to be adapted for the screen, but the streaming service had just exercised its option.
The Martini Club TV series (or film?), with its record-breaking five main characters of a “certain age,” is being made.
Tess told us that Rizzoli & Isles, meanwhile, was ultimately cancelled despite being TNT’s top show because it featured two 50+ females. “Now people know that ‘old’ people watch television,” she said.
Now, you don’t have to be a writer looking for a public audience to want to be “seen.” In yet another book, the memoir Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, the therapist author Lori Gottlieb writes of a troubled patient who felt abandoned by multiple husbands and her own children. “For so much of her life she wanted not to be invisible, to be seen,” Lori wrote of Rita, who eventually does find love — and contacts her children.
You don’t have to be a writer looking for a public audience to want to be “seen.”
It’s not a public audience or a second career she was looking for: She simply wanted her own kids to see past some of her bad decisions and see the young mom who was trying her best. And she wanted a partner who stopped moving long enough to understand her.
Last week I found myself standing in an alleyway locked out of the office where I had a meeting scheduled. A harmless older construction worker stopped to ask what the heck I was doing there and turned out to be quite the skilled chatterbox (his pivot from conspiracy theories about clouds to heavy metal music was truly remarkable).
When he started lamenting that he was once in a pretty successful band, I thought back to my favorite fictional retired CIA agents struggling to let go, and I changed my body language and encouraged him to talk about his good ol’ days.
And it felt good.
Catch up on some past links before I do a life catch-up (I swear):
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