I'm dedicating this episode to Sue.

She wasn't a close friend, but she was one of those people you knew well enough to know how special she was. She lit up every room she walked into. She was glamorous, funny, full of energy. Her brain never stopped and neither did she. I always thought of her as a butterfly, always beautiful, always moving.

Her funeral was this week. She was four years older than me. Just one year into her retirement.

I remember saying to her once that she should write a book. She had the most extraordinary life. It would have been wonderful.

She never did.

This episode is for everyone who has been putting it off. Because your story deserves to be written, and one day isn't a date in the diary. It doesn't arrive on its own. You have to choose it.

I talk about memoir writing today, and I want to make it as easy and un-scary as possible. Because memoir isn't a CV with feelings. It isn't chronological. It isn't starting at birth and working forwards. It's about what your life means. It's about sitting around a campfire with friends and leaning in to say "right, so there I was, and everything was about to change..."

I share five different ways to structure your memoir, none of them starting at the beginning, and three things that will make your story genuinely captivating to read. Your memories don't have to be perfect. The dates don't have to be exact. It just has to be true to you.

We don't get to choose when our time runs out. But we do get to choose whether we write our story before it does.

So write one memory this week. One moment. One page. Just start somewhere.

💜 Join the free Skool community + The BLOOM System: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Guidebook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirement
📖 The Ultimate Retirement Workbook: https://mybook.to/Ultimate-retirementWB
🎙 Subscribe — new episodes every Sunday

You're not too late. You're right on time.

QUOTES

🗣 From this episode:
"We don't get to choose when our time runs out. But we do get to choose whether we write our story before it does." — Wendy Williams, Episode 5

✍️ This week's writing inspiration:
"Start before you're ready." — Steven Pressfield

I was halfway through my next book, part of the Communications De-coded series, when something stopped me in my tracks. Not writer’s block. Not life getting in the way. A realisation.

A book gives you information. But it doesn’t give you accountability. And I think accountability is everything.

So I stopped writing. And I built something better.

In this episode I’m sharing exactly what the Late Bloomer Author Skool community is, what’s inside it, and why I think it could be the thing that finally gets your book written. It’s free to join. I’m in there every day. And it’s built around you, not at you.

I walk through the BLOOM System, five free training modules designed to take you from blank page to book blueprint, and I talk about why AI is your best writing assistant, not your ghostwriter. It does the grunt work. You bring the voice. The story. The experience that nobody else has.

I also talk about something I don’t want you to do. Don’t do this alone. Whether it’s an accountability partner, a question posted in the community, or just knowing there are other people in the same boat, it matters more than you think.

I’ve already pinned a thread inside the Skool community asking what you need. 

What’s stopping you? 

What would you like me to focus on?

Your answers will shape what I build next. So come in, introduce yourself, and tell me.

The door is open. It’s free. And I’ll be waiting for you there.

💜 Join the free Skool community + The BLOOM System: https://okleaf.link/LateBloomer

🎙 Subscribe to the podcast, new episodes every Sunday

You’re not too late. You’re right on time.

What Will You Leave Behind? The Question That Changed Everything

When you pictured retirement, what did you see? A rest? A reward? An ending?

In this episode I want to flip that. Because retirement isn't an ending, it's a chapter. And the question I keep coming back to is this: what are you going to leave behind?

I'm drawing on Chapter Eight of my Ultimate Retirement Guidebook, the legacy chapter, the one that stopped me in my tracks when I wrote it and made me ask myself the very question I was putting to my readers. Legacy doesn't mean being famous. It doesn't mean world-changing. It means being remembered. It means your story, your hard-won lessons, your experience, written down for the people who come after you.

I also share something that genuinely moved me this week. I came across a YouTube channel by a lady called Tobi, 74 years old, recently started creating, completely herself on camera. I watched one video and then another and then another. And the comments. People in their 60s and 70s saying she gave them permission to start something new. But why are we waiting for permission? If you've got an idea, a dream, something you've always wanted to do, this is your permission. Right now. From me.

I also talk about the moment it clicked for me, getting over myself and getting on camera. About my friend who I recently lost, whose legacy was raising money for charity and being remembered with nothing but fondness. About the Skool community, the BLOOM System, and why accountability changes everything.

Your story matters. Your legacy matters. And you don't have to rock the world to leave one.

What happens when two competitive people sit side by side on the sofa with laptops, a seven-day deadline, and a shared love of cruising? Apparently, they both write a book. And then spend months arguing about who's selling more on Amazon.

In this episode I'm joined by my husband Chris, software architect, tech geek, and now the author of more books than I can keep track of. We go right back to the beginning: the Facebook challenge that started it all, why we chose the same topic (cruising, him ocean, me river), and how two completely different personalities managed to write, publish, and actually finish within seven days.

Chris is the charge-ahead-and-figure-it-out type. I'm the planner. He's Mr Tech. I'm the creative. And somehow it worked, though it did get competitive.

We also talk about what happened next. Chris went on to write about chickens, rescue cats, procrastination (now on Audible and translated into Spanish), AI security, fiction, and everything in between. His cloud is apparently full of half-written books and abandoned projects, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But underneath the laughs, there's a genuinely important message in this episode: accountability changes everything. We didn't just get our books done because we're productive people, we got them done because we were doing it together, sneaking glances at each other's word counts, spurring each other on.

If you're sitting on a book idea and wondering whether you could actually do it, this episode is your answer. You can. You just might need someone on the sofa next to you.

Which is exactly why the Late Bloomer Author Skool community exists. Free to join. Wendy's in there every day. Link in the show notes.

You're not too late. You're right on time.

Join the skool community

Have you always wanted to write a book but talked yourself out of it before you even started? Maybe you've told yourself you're too old, too late, or that nobody would want to read what you have to say. I've said every single one of those things to myself, and then I wrote four books.In this very first episode of The Late Bloomer Author podcast, I'm sharing my story from the beginning. How a random Facebook post led my husband and me to a seven-day write-and-publish challenge, sitting side by side on the sofa, writing our first books on the topic we love most, cruising. How we both published on Amazon within seven days, and how that one moment of "why not?" completely changed the direction of my life.I also talk about the books that followed, including my Monjaro weight loss journal (written because the resources out there didn't log what I needed), and my Management & Leadership Skills book, which I wrote despite that nagging voice asking why anyone would choose my book over someone else's. Spoiler: because nobody has lived your life. Nobody has your experience. And that is exactly what makes your book worth writing.Along the way I share how I used AI as a research tool, not to write the book for me, but to do the heavy lifting so I could focus on what only I could bring: my perspective, my case studies, my voice.This podcast is for you if you're 40, 50, 60 or beyond, and you have a book inside you that hasn't made it onto the page yet. Whether it's your life story, your career experience, your passion, or something you know could genuinely help someone else, it counts. It matters. And you are not too late.I also introduce The Late Bloomer Author Skool community, a free space where you can connect with me directly, access hours of training, prompts, resources and checklists, and get the support you need to finally make a start.Because the hardest part isn't the writing. It's the starting. And that's exactly what we're here for.Remember, You're not too late. You're right on time.