Jackie gets onto the elevator from twelve. She says hi to Barbara from sixteen, already on board. Sixteen is the penthouse but no one calls it that anymore, that’s elitist, although the Art Deco button panel still shows PH. …
I see “The Walking Dead” as a classic hero’s journey story. My hero is an older woman who must navigate, on a few blocks in her own neighborhood, the most challenging adventure of all: growing old. The structure demands she return home transformed and, for my hero, it’s into old age having come of age again (we do it several times!), maybe for the final time.
When I wear my editorial hat, I advise writers who feel overwhelmed wrangling ideas into story format to simply start with a scene that feels true and real to them. Something they can picture. A scene they can step into on the page. That’s it. No big proclamation of Novel! Short Story! Just…one scene. I’ve yet to encounter a writer who is not inspired by an authentic exploration of a scene that captures them, that says what they want to say to readers, and compels them to keep going.
My “scene” was Jackie and Barbara in the elevator, with Jackie feeling affronted by Barbara’s assumption that they are the same age. I started thinking about boomers—the glory and the curse of that era—and the signs and signifiers of obsolescence were myriad. So I sent my protagonist on a solo expedition not exactly to reclaim her identity but to acknowledge a new identity, her next old self: resilient, distinctive, and brave. Not to mention, trying hard to keep herself amused by it all.
STEPHANIE GANGI is a poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist living and writing in New York City. Her day job is as developmental editor and book coach; work inspires her like crazy. Her debut novel at age sixty, The Next, was published by St. Martin’s Press, and her second at age sixty-five, Carry the Dog, was published by Algonquin Books. Her work has appeared in Catapult, LitHub, Hippocrates Prize Anthology, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New Ohio Review, Oldster, NextTribe, The Woolfer, Arts & Letters and more. Her third novel, The Good Provider, is in progress. Find her on Instagram @stephaniegangi and Facebook @stephanie.gangi.3.
