"WHAT I THINK" A SYMPOSIUM ON BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS BY FAMOUS WRITERS OF TODAY is an excellent book edited by H.GREENHOUGH SMITH.

This book has information about how various famous authors like G B Shaw,Walpole, write their books, if they know of any unconscious incidents of plagiarism of or in their works, the book that they enjoyed writing most , how they broke into print and finally advice on what books to read to form 'mind and character'.

Knowing the views of authors themselves will let you identify your writing life phase with any of theirs or how easy or hard its been for each of them to write and get published.

Once you are done reading the book, you will also have a list of pointers to authors and books that you might want to read about once you find out the themes soem of the stories are based on, or how different have two unconnected authors have written the same story.