Everything I know I learned from Mel and the talented people who worked for him. History. Archaeology. Geology. Electronics. You name it.
I know people who are really talented at writing, and they just don't ever make it happen because they're also good at other things.
It didn't occur to me that I could be a writer until college. I saw all these people around me training to be doctors, or historians, or C.E.O.'s or whatnot, and I thought, Maybe I want to be a writer.