The promise of narrative ...

... The Millions : Post-40 Bloomers: Walker Percy, The Original Moviegoer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I can only report that something did happen and it happened all of a sudden. Other writers have reported a similar experience. It is not like learning a skill or a game at which, with practice, one gradually improves. One works hard all right, but what comes, comes all of a sudden and as a breakthrough. One hits on something… It is almost as if the discouragement were necessary, that one has first to encounter despair before one is entitled to hope.