Featured Writer on Wellness: Gail Cushman

Words come easily for me and I have written all my life.

As a child I wrote letters to friends and family. Stamps cost just a nickel and for a quarter I could write and get back five letters and I liked it. My letters were usually three-to-four pages long in longhand and it was a good opportunity to develop grammar and usage skills.

The postmaster teased that I bought more stamps than most businesses. With only twenty-six letters in the alphabet, I can rearrange them, and make all kinds of words. It’s like magic!

I Composed My First Book in About Six Weeks

I taught composition for high school students and watched their essays go from ho-hum as freshmen to something they were proud of a few years later. I wrote with them, read my essays aloud, and dabbled in poetry about them.

I wrote many grants and helped people with resumes and other written documents that they needed. I usually won the grants and others usually got the jobs, and it was fulfilling.

I must say that writing grants is a dull way to spend an afternoon, while writing my wrinkly stories gives me energy.

I composed my first full-length book, a mystery entitled Absolution, about twenty years ago and finished it in about six weeks. The words literally poured out of me and I thought, “Wow, that was easy,” but getting it published proved more difficult and it still takes up space in my cupboard.

I put on my Marine armor and had it edited and my editor liked it, so I launched into three more mysteries, the Breaking Barrier Series (Trespasses at the Chicken Dinner Ranch, Mayhem at the Chicken Dinner Ranch, and Treachery at the Chicken Dinner Ranch). They are set in rural Nevada, edited, but still unpublished.

After Having Written Several Books Without Being Published, I Grew Cranky

After having written several books without being published, I grew cranky and thought I would quit writing.

I decided I was a bad writer and voiced myself to my daughter and editors, who said (in different ways), don’t give up, try a new genre, like a western or a romance. I thought about it for about minute and decided that I don’t know anything about cowboys and horses and chickens and would leave that up to Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey.

And romances, are you kidding? Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a romantic person, (although I am quite familiar with the smooching parts), but as my editors and I researched romance novels, we found that romances for senior citizens run the gamut from sixteen years old to the ripe old age of fifty.

My Daughter Said, “Write What You Know: Cruises and Being Old”

I thought, “What the heck?” My husband and I were taking cruises, and I noticed passion from people far over fifty (sometimes steamy with libidos working overtime!) and started a book about people over the age of sixty falling in lust, (oops, typo) love. The wheels might squeak, but they still worked.

My untactful daughter said, “Write what you know: cruises and being old” (thank you very much), and my editor researched what romances were available for the over sixty crowd, and said, “Gail, we’ve got a whole new genre, it’s wide open.”

I now have written three in the Wrinkly Bits series: Cruise Time, Out of Time, and Wasting Time. They are all about people over the age of sixty who have libidos and passion along with their aches and pains and insecurities and feeling invisible and unneeded.

They also have adult children who don’t always agree with their aging parents.

ADVICE: Have fun with your writing and don’t be afraid to try something different. Find a great editor who you like and can work with. I call my editors Sunshine and Lambkins because they brighten my day and make me laugh. They call me Honey Bunny, and I’m afraid to ask why.

My Husband Always Said I Could Do Anything and I’ve Taken That to Heart

So far, I haven’t had any true writer’s block, but have had other things on my mind.

This year I dealt with Covid, as everyone has, but I also had to deal with my husband’s extended bout with diseases caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam and his death last year. We were married over fifty years and he was always my rock and made my life worth living, but he was terribly sick.

I often say it was easier to have him die than to watch him die and now he’s at peace and so am I. He was in the VA nursing home (which gave him excellent care, BTW) and I saw him every day. I would cry all the way home, then jump into gear with my looking-for-love characters and in the flash of an eye they would make me appreciate what I have instead of what I haven’t.

I served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam era and learned structure and discipline and gained a lot of self-confidence. My husband always said I could do anything, and I’ve taken that to heart.

It takes me a few weeks to switch gears from one book to another, which is frustrating because they get mixed up in my brain. Moving from a murderous priest in Nevada to a soybean farmer in Idaho can be challenging. I am a fast worker and get irritated when things don’t move as quickly as I do, but my editors are trying to teach me patience.

Other than social media and constant phone calls from my friends Potential Spam and Maybe Junk, I have few interruptions and tons of time to write.

Yes, some of my works have been rejected, but I write for myself, have fun with it, and don’t worry about it.

I See Blog Subjects Everywhere

I have a lot of unimportant stuff rattling around in my brain, and I see humor in almost everything, so staying creative is not hard. If I don’t create, I’ll have to find something else to do and I don’t know what it would be. Pies for my editors maybe?

My twice-weekly blog, called Wrinkly Bits, is an Erma Bombeck/Seinfeld style of writing about nothing, the mundane, day-to-day things that happen to us, especially those of us who are of a certain age.

Examples: losing things (where did I leave my glasses?), forgetting our train of thought (what was I saying?), new things to puzzle us (what is a bit coin again?), technology (what do you mean I can’t use my first name as my password? It’s the only one I can remember). The list goes on, and on, and on.

I see blog subjects everywhere; they stand in front of me like signs that say, “Blog me, blog me.”

I Like to Think of My Wrinkles as Wisdom and Authenticity

I borrowed the name “Wrinkly Bits” from the “wrinkle room” at the Sun Valley Lodge, otherwise known as the Duchin Lounge, after Peter Duchin, a famous musician of the 1930s and 40s.

The twenty-somethings who work at the Lodge nicknamed the Duchin Room the Wrinkle Room because only people with wrinkles listen to that genre of music. Ha!

My Wrinkly Bits series and blogs are about happiness and hazards of aging. While I believe that age is just a number, for some it is dreaded, particularly when ailments and serious diseases take hold.

It is important to be able to laugh at what’s happening to us, the sagging and bagging and wrinkles and crinkles. I like to think of my wrinkles as wisdom and authenticity.

The Best Book Marketing Tool I Have

As I said, putting words on paper is the easy part. Agents and publishers have lots of books to choose from, and they may or may not read queries, and seldom respond with anything meaningful.

I was told early on that agents read queries in elevators and if the query was longer than an elevator ride, it wouldn’t be read. I’ve never figured that out.

Wrinkly Bits Cruise Time and Wrinkly Bits Out of Time are published (Wrinkly Bits Wasting Time is being edited) and we are pulling together a variety of options. I believe that my Wrinkly Bits blogs are the best [marketing] tool that we have. I am using a publicist (Atmosphere Press) and learning the publishing business on the fly.

There’s a Bus Leaving Tomorrow…I Might As Well Be On It

I am 75 and retired, but busier than many people and fortunately I am healthy and intend to stay that way.

I write every day, just like Stephen King, and rewrite often, parsing words and phrases to say exactly what I want. I walk my 10,000 steps most days and make it a point to go somewhere or visit with someone every day. I like to travel and choose to go somewhere where I can still fit writing into my routine or get bits of fodder for my wrinkly stories.

Last winter I traveled to Florida for two months defying Covid and went somewhere every week…St. Augustine (a treasure trove of history), Savannah (sat on the Forest Gump bench and that’s all I have to say about that), and Daytona, where my friend and I stumbled on a nude beach.

My grandmother always said, “There’s a bus leaving tomorrow, I might as well be on it.” Auntie Mame said (in the Broadway musical Mame), “Life is a banquet, most …are starving to death.” I’m one who will get on the bus and not starve to death at a banquet.

Advice for a Young Writer: Take Care of Yourself First

Do what you love and love what you do, but take care of yourself first, work toward good health and maintain a positive outlook. If you aren’t physically and mentally healthy, your books won’t be either.

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Gail Cushman’s husband often teased that she had two useless degrees, a B.S. and M.A., both in Sociology, but he was wrong. Those degrees made Cushman a master of people-watching and now, with twenty cruises behind her, she has observed more senior hijinks than she could possibly remember.

A former Marine Corps officer and composition teacher, she now shares that mischief with her readers by writing a bi-weekly blog “Wrinkly Bits” available at wrinklybits.com. Cushman’s dream is to remind all of us that age is only a number and that it’s time to get on with living. She makes her home in Idaho and has two grown children and four delightful grandchildren.

For more information on Gail and her work, see her blog (above), or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Wrinkly Bits: Cruise Time: Geared toward people of a certain age—whatever that age might be—Cruise Time, Gail Cushman’s first of three novels in her Wrinkly Bits trilogy, takes you on a cruise that’s filled with humor, life, and love.

Audrey and Griff Lyons are retired Idaho farmers who have been married nearly fifty years and have settled into the humdrum monotony of tolerating each other. But all that changes when Griff tells Audrey to dig out her bikini because a luxurious cruise awaits. In the first moments of the trip, Audrey spies Logan, a retired podiatrist, who immediately falls head over feet in love with her and sets off what turns out to be a series of spicy hijinks.

The Lyons are Joined by their friends Phyllis and Gus, retired schoolteachers ready to try anything. Phyllis searches for new and adventurous things while her husband Gus seeks relaxation, beer, and babes, but with his excess girth, the finding babes isn’t in the works until he meets Dr. Lewis, who has her own lust for meaty men. Steve, a retired dentist, married his trophy wife Carlee twenty years ago, but with her acquired wrinkles and crinkles, she is less appealing and is clearly alcoholic.

The three couples, all over sixty, rediscover their gusto for life, not to mention their libidos, on their way to sites unseen on the high seas.

Available on Amazon.

Wrinkly Bits: Out of Time: Out of Time is the second book in Gail Cushman’s Wrinkly Bits trilogy and humorously ponders the concepts of love through the years.

Logan, a retired podiatrist is smitten with Audrey. Like a love-struck puppy, he follows her home from a cruise, but she and husband Griff have been married for nearly fifty years and her marriage vows still reign supreme even though she’s been lonely and isolated for decades. Griff is a good man, and she loves him, but the spark went out of their marriage long ago. Realizing she has fallen deeply in love with Logan, she finds herself wondering if there is a chance for a better life, even this late in her game.

Audrey and Griff’s adult children live a state away and ask Audrey to babysit, leaving Griff, who is on the mend from an injury, at home. Logan seizes his opportunity and accompanies Audrey across state lines. Audrey’s adult children are dumbfounded to find her with another man and rush back to Hunter to implore retired schoolteacher Phyllis to care for Griff. Phyllis, who can’t resist a new adventure, launches her Academy of Romance, to teach Griff how to be romantic, proving that you can get carried away by love and libido no matter your age.

Available on Amazon.