Pat Mills is someone I have incredible respect for as both a writer and advocate of creativity. His Substack is required reading for me. For Mills, the villain in his creative life is the presence of his English teacher: “My teacher’s deliberate sabotaging of my creative endeavours – for a number of personal reasons I’ll get into later – actually forced me to find my own unique writing path. His negativity undoubtedly made me the writer I am today and I can see his influence in every single one of my stories… He is lurking in the shadows of all of them..” (Pat Mills’ Iconoblast)