Write About What You Know

It was Stephen King’s fault that I slept with the lights on for weeks at a time.

We live in a 107-year-old house with two staircases and a creepy basement. I try not to watch horror flicks or read anything that will send my imagination into overdrive and cause our creaky old house to scare me in the middle of the night. Now that vampires, zombies, and paranormal activity are all the rage in fiction, I realize Stephen King and our house have kept me from capitalizing on the movement.

I thought about writing a foodie mystery. I love to cook, and books that tie into cooking or the food industry are also big in the mystery genre. I tried to come up with a culinary idea but to no avail.

I read somewhere that you should write about what you know. That finally sent me in the right direction. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a book yet where the main character worked in a weight loss center by day and a racquetball club by night. I did both, and both were a hoot – especially since there was a lot of drinking at the latter.

I’ve read a few book reviews where someone will complain that a book was too silly and some of the things that happened weren’t believable. People can’t argue with your own experiences. Writing from experience and writing about what you know have kept me from going too far into the realm of silly. If someone would write to me and say there’s no such thing as a disappearing bathing suit, I could write back with confidence and say, “Just ask my family. I held my head up high as I came out of the pool at that lovely hotel in Florida. They were embarrassed when they had to tell me that my suit was see-through when it was wet.”

Write about what you know.