Blogging (is a MAT)

I've spent the morning roving from blog to blog (I never could surf, too much water up my nose) and finding more and more delightful things to read. I've been reading blogs about books and life at Asylym, BooksPlease, Cornflower, dovegreyreader and Stuck in a Book; and blogs about writing books and life at Bookarazzi, The Writing Life, writing, coffee and other obsessions and one about both and, at MetaxuCafe; let alone writing a blog about writing ... all is gloriously MATful (although it is Saturday, and I don't write on the weekends - at least I don't if I know I'll have time to write in the week; I do if I know I won't, or if, the wonderful if, someone else - a publisher, for instance, - has imposed a deadline).

Speaking of which, Douglas Adams said a wonderful thing about deadlines. He said that he loved to hear the sound of them as they whooshed by. He was, allegedly, legendary in his inability to keep deadlines (or dead lions as a young nephew once thought I'd said - which conjures wonderful images of something very smelly, doesn't it?) Anyway, Douglas Adams was a wise, wildly funny and wonderful writer and he said this, in answer to these:

How should prospective writers go about becoming an author?
First of all, realise that it's very hard, and that writing is a gruelling and lonely business and, unless you are extremely lucky, badly paid as well. You had better really, really, really want to do it. Next you have to write something. Unless you are committed to novel writing exclusively, I suggest that you start out writing for radio. It's still a relatively easy medium to get into because it pays so badly. But it is a great medium for writers because it relies so much on the imagination. You will learn a tremendous amount from it, and maybe get some useful exposure.

What qualities are needed by an author?
A determination to keep at it.

There's nothing more to be said really, is there? Except that the questioner obviously thinks it takes several writers make one author ... .