I'm not sure when it was I realized I'd become part of an invisible demographic but as a "woman of a certain age", as far as mainstream media was concerned, I was no longer viable unless they wanted to sell me something.
You can either accept exclusion or you try to do something to level the playing field. If I wasn't going to see myself in the books I was reading, I'd write a book in which mature characters were still relevant, sexy, flawed, and funny—as well as evil, twisted, and brilliant.
Since my cronies and I have aged out of chick lit and hen lit is a bit too barnyard for my taste, I dubbed the genre I was writing in "crone lit".
I've gotten some pushback.
Women balk at being labeled by age or appearance, but crone in its best sense—wise, magical, powerful—can be ours for the taking. The crone trope as an ugly, evil hag is a product of the patriarchy.
As with "bitch" and "Jezebel" by co-opting the language of our oppressors, we wrest back the power of the words they use to define us so that we can define ourselves.
I say: "Embrace your inner crone. Let her shine. Reclaim your power." #cronelit#invisiblewomen#invisiblenomore