Talent is important but can't be sustained without good work ethic

I still remember the moment when I first figured out that the books I adored didn’t magically appear out of thin air; there was a real-life person behind those stories.

I immediately took pen to paper to write a letter to the writers of my favourite novels and explain how much their work had meant to me. Devastating realisation #1: St Clare’s Boarding School didn’t exist and therefore I couldn’t enrol immediately. Devastating realisation #2: Some of my most beloved authors — Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, and CS Lewis — were dead and there would be no more books left to devour once I had finished their respective back catalogues.