> Three years later, I am still very much the apprentice.

Well, three years is really not a lot when it comes to developing an intuition. Just enough to grasp some basics.

> a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people

Yeah, I seem to recall Douglas Adams saying that the easier it is to read a text, the harder it was to write it.

At the beginning of my career I was constantly being praised for how fast I work. Well, I did stuff that worked, the effects were quickly visible, everyone was happy.

Even though there were code reviews to weed out the ugliest stuff, I wouldn't want to go back and maintain that software today :P