I've been considering the implications of the adage, "write what you know." By writing what you know, you can bring life and accuracy to your stories far more successfully than by making things up as you go. Your personal experiences also provide a wealth of relatable characters and anecdotes to draw from. For me this is a bonus because I have yet to develop a talent for inventing stories and personalities on my own. I hope that one day this will come more naturally, but right now, no dice. What's more, non-fiction sells better than fiction, so that's a pretty big incentive for writing about one's own life rather than making up someone else's.
But the more I consider the idea of writing what I know, the trickier it gets. A couple examples for you: I just re-read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. This book is one part travel writing and nine parts autobiography/journey of self-discovery. Ms. Gilbert discusses, well, pretty much everything; crippling depression, spiritual philosophy, masturbation, talking to herself - the list goes on. Frankly, my dear, those some hefty topics to consider in the third person, let alone in the first. And then there's the young woman writing for Cosmo about the 77 sex positions she will test out with her boyfriend in as many days. What on earth does she tell her parents she's working on!?
Safe, tactful subjects that one is comfortable discussing with most everyone - plans to go to grad school, how the cat is doing, what you had for lunch - hardly make for gripping reading. What makes a story worth reading are drama, emotion, scandal with a pinch of bawdiness thrown in for good measure. We've all got those things going on, let's be honest, but the trick is figuring out how to write about them. So I guess I either need to grow a backbone and get down to it, or find a suitable research project to write about and skip discussing my life all together. I'm not too keen on either.
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