This is at best tangential to what you're saying, but it's something I always wonder about whenever I see a discussion about practicing writing: is there an upper threshold to writing ability?

See, I've been writing in fairly substantial amounts for about the past seven years. When I look at my old writing, it's clear that I improved extremely rapidly for the first year or so, and there's noticeable (though less pronounced) improvement for the next three or four years, but recently I think I've plateaued -- I no longer write in quite the same way I did a year ago, but I can't really distinguish between my writing then and now in terms of quality.

What's more, I'm not sure I can see anywhere for my writing to go -- I feel like I've maxed out my ability to appeal to my own aesthetic (in prose). And the fact that that even seems possible is a little painful.

I have to go and don't have time to really finish saying whatever I'm saying here. Have any of you ever felt like this? Have any of you ever gotten over feeling like this?