It took her “six or seven years of very interrupted effort” to produce Bible and Sword. Like Morrison, Tuchman accumulated a stack of rejection slips before finding a publisher, a university press that mainly produced niche books. At age 44, Tuchman had finally become a published writer of history— a relatively unknown writer with a small readership, but a published writer nonetheless. And like Morrison, she’d become compulsive about her work, unable to stop herself, one question leading to another, project after project, book after book.

Yet both sustained the cycle of creative work, Morrison pumping out five major books after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature (at age 62) and Tuchman producing four major books after the second Pulitzer Prize. Both writers produced more than 40% of their major books after the age of 60.

When Graham came across a particularly good one, she’d write “nugget” alongside the golden find. They did this for years, until they’d accumulated a great big pile of gleaming nuggets. Only then— after six years of culling documents, doing interviews, making transcriptions, and sifting for nuggets— did Graham make the definitive decision to write the book, which would take her another eight years to finish and publish. Graham would receive a Pulitzer Prize for her book at age 80.

12. Feeding the Inner Fire (and Doing Great Work Late)

Toni Morrison didn’t write Beloved and Jazz, two of the books highlighted in her selection for the Nobel Prize, until well past the midpoint of her life; she published Beloved at age 56 and Jazz at age 61.

Robert plant garnered 86% of his 21 Grammy nominations, and all eight of his wins, after the age of 50. As I write this in 2025, Plant continues his creative work (in his mid-70s), and it is entirely possible that he will bring forth more award-winning music.

I also take solace from Franklin’s life, in learning that he endured an extended trough in his 50s and 60s (relative to the rest of his life). If Benjamin Franklin can make mistakes and misjudgments, then I don’t feel so bad about my own mistakes and misjudgments. If Benjamin Franklin can spend years on efforts that ultimately ended in failure, then I don’t feel so bad about my own efforts on projects that ended up being dead ends or cul-de-sacs. If Benjamin Franklin can feel dispirited and in a fog funk, then I don’t feel so bad about my own existential fog funks. If Benjamin Franklin can enter his 60s with half of the most significant pages of his life yet to be written, then I feel quite good about the possibilities for the late decades of life.

In writing about Benjamin Franklin and casting back through all the remarkable people in this investigation, I’m struck by the imperfections in their lives. The stories led me to a gigantic, calming exhale about my own life imperfections, letting go the anchoring weight of past mistakes and missed opportunities. I take from studying them a reminder that I wrote for myself and that I return to whenever I find myself being pulled around backward in the saddle by past regrets: You cannot straighten out the road behind you.