Its basically a slice of life piece from someone whose last project didn't go like they expected.

I guess writing is a bit like coding. It's hard to judge what will actually be good, what actually works, why and who is any good and for similar reasons.

If you build a bridge, anyone can see if it works. It's a lot harder to judge if writing or coding "works."

What work was done? How well did it do that work?

Inferring from proxies is always dicey and tends to not inspire confidence.