I guess by taking lessons early on, and really trying to play all the rudimentary stuff, and try to have it sound as good as my teacher. It took a lot of practice, which I enjoyed, and still do.
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history.