My breakthrough as a reader was when I discovered the European adventure story writers - Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, to name a few.

Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical.

Mealtime

"A mousie squealing in a trap
Woke me from my morning nap.
Wasn't he so very sweet
To tell me it was time to eat?"

(From A CAT'S GARDEN OF VERSES)

In the writers mind, even a backstory has a backstory.

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his

I want you, as a reader, to experience what I experience, to let that other world, that imaginary world that I have created, tell you things about the real world.