Everything a writer learns will help their writing.

First example: after twenty-something years of teaching college students, I’ve learned that classes get categorized in three groups: “I loved that class”, “It was okay”, and “Why did I have to take that class?” The number one class in the third category was Philosophy, otherwise known as “that class where you argue totally unimportant things”.  I sympathized with these students because I’d taken philosophy myself.  I had discovered the purpose of philosophy was to come up with a internally coherent argument about unseen and unknown things. There’s no way to objectively test if your argument is correct. (in the words of my mother, “What difference does it make if we have free will or not? We can’t change it!”)

When I took philosophy, I said what countless other students said — “what am I going to use this for?” Years later, I started writing novels, which required different skills than short stories and poetry. Because I wrote fantasy, I had to build talents and powers and magic and the like that were internally consistent. (Trust me, Harry Potter fans have convinced me that every single discrepancy in magic will be noted by the readers — Just look up “Elder Wand” and you’ll get an earful.) The jump from internally consistent arguments to internally consistent magic systems wasn’t that big. So now I finally get to use philosophy for something useful!

Another example: Moulage. According to my annual report last year, I am a nationally recognized moulage expert. (This means I’ve been moulage coordinator for two (going on three) of the disaster training exercises for the Consortium for Humanitarian Service and Education.) Moulage, by the way, is otherwise known as casualty simulation. Yes, that means I make ordinary people look like victims for emergency and disaster training. I taught myself how to do this after some lovely people mistook me for an expert, and I keep getting better as I go. But the reason I mention it here is because I have had to study many, many gory pictures to do my art — closed abdominal injury, disembowelments, burns, open and closed fractures, gunshots … If people get wounded or killed in my writing, I either know what the carnage looks like or I look it up.

In short, a writer can’t say “I’ll never use that”, because that most arcane or useless bit of information can, and will, come in handy.
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If you’ve read this far: I will be taking the train out to upstate New York on Wednesday to serve as Moulage Coordinator for the third exercise in the CHSE series, New York Hope. I hope to have time to write, even on the train. I would post pictures of my handiwork, but it’s … gross.