How to write a book. A memoir of the craft (№ 464698)

I had to live many more years - too many, I think - ashamed of what I wrote. It seems that only when I was forty [years old] did I realize that almost every author of fiction who published at least a line in his life was accused by someone of wasting his God-given talent on nonsense. If you write (books, or paintings, or sculpt, or sing - it doesn’t matter), someone will definitely try to instill in you a feeling of shame for it. I'm not philosophizing - I'm just stating a fact.