If she came forth with praise, I knew that what I had written wasn't fake. There is a difference. I could never stand to be on stage, at least not literally. But when you grow up in a family like mine, in which performance, both formal and informal, is prized, you're never quite offstage. As the youngest child, I soon found that the way to attract and keep attention was to perform as myself.
Timing is in the ear.
But there is also a sort of innate sense of timing that one is born with. Although she was a woman without an apparent sense of humour, her great gift was comic timing. In this, she was faultless. Her dramatic timing was also very good, but the comic timing was brilliant. Anyway, when I would perform, either on or off the page, it was she who would always call me on the timing.