It has taken me decades to understand and accept the premise that to become a writer you must train, the same way you train for a competitive sport. The idea that I didn’t understand that before astonishes me. How could I be so naïve? How did I grow up thinking talent was a kind of magic, or voodoo, that no work was involved, only hoping, and/or finding someone who could determine whether or not you had the Gift, the way geneticists can tell if you will or will not develop Huntington’s? I have wasted so much time waiting for a diagnosis, instead of learning how to write.