Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.
Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.
To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.
It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.
I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.
I think that thing about the destruction of the world is there all the time, it's there every day when we look out the window.