It's just that such things are subsidiary, and not in any way essential to learning to write. Writing is as much a process of self-discovery as it is anything else. To be successful, you need to know first what you want to write, and secondly, how to write it. Reading is one way of determining what you really want to write. This is basically a process of playing mind-games with yourself.
Writing is largely a matter of persistence.
No matter how bad you are to start with, if you keep doing it, you will get better. No guarantees that you'll get good enough to publish, but you will definitely get better. At this, my remaining blood shot up into my brain, but I replied with equal politeness that no, I unfortunately had to write the books myself. I mention this because there does seem to be a common notion that it's the ideas that are the important part of writing a book. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way.