The Making of a Novelist by David Christie Murray

There is a theory to the effect that every man or woman in the world could write at least one readable and instructive novel out of his or her own actual experience. There is a very apparent disposition to put this idea to the test of practice, though, happily, not more than half the world's population has been so far animated by it. An equally sage idea is that anybody, and everybody, can take a part upon the stage. To write a novel or to turn actor -- to astonish the world with a new Waverley, Esmond, or Copperfield, or to dazzle the mimic scene with a novel Hamlet, Falstaff, Richelieu, or Othello -- would seem the simplest thing in the world to the apprehension of a good many excellent people.

Charles Dickens observed a great many years ago that to 'come out' in a great part is one of the easiest things in the world; while to avoid going in again is one of the most difficult. In my time I have both come out and gone in again; and though I am not disposed to tax my modesty for defences, or to offer prophecies for the future, it is not improbable that I may repeat the experience in its completeness. I suppose that the pursuit of the successful actor is the most fascinating in the world. Here and there one learns that it has been distasteful in an individual instance; but these cases are only the exceptions which prove themselves and nothing else.