I have been off the motorcycles for about 20 years now, but that doesn't mean I can't still do it.
The publishing industry, unsurprisingly, is full of different people who love different things and express that love in different languages. Find the people, the editors and agents, with whom you share some language, and some sense of what makes literature worth reading.
My function in life is not to be a politician in Parliament: it is to get something done.