I left school at seventeen and did not go to university for various personal reasons. That was my first mistake. I knew I had promise as a writer, but for the next twenty years I wrote nothing creative except sales pitches and brochure copy. I damned myself to the hell of wasted talent. If you're a reader (and I know you are, you are on Goodreads), and if you want to be a writer, do not let your talent atrophy. Do not fail yourself. We only have so much time to prepare the foundations. In my thirties I went back to school; I resumed my writing; I have written four books. But I often think to myself: if only I could have back those missing twenty years of creative wasteland, what kind of writer would I be - could I be - now?
Keep writing, my friends.