Dan Simmons on Writing Well:

We all know there are youthful prodigies in mathematics. Indeed, by the age of 30, most true mathematicians are over the hill. If they haven’t made their bones by then, they almost certainly never will.

There are near-infant prodigies in music. (At the age of two, so the story goes, little Mozart would toddle downstairs in the middle of the night and play an unresolved chord on the harpsichord, knowing that his father would have to get out of bed and come downstairs to resolve it.)

There are artistic prodigies such as Picasso. It’s reported that Andrew Wyeth was so proficient in drawing with charcoal when he was about seven that his instructor, his father N.C., banned him from drawing with it for at least a year so he wouldn’t fall behind in learning his skills with other media.

There are no novelist prodigies. None. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

This is an absolute must read for all writers.