What If What You Know Limits You
It's strange, when people try to encourage you to write by writing what you know. Always had a problem with that. I was never sure if I know enough about anything to write about it. Once, when I was younger, a friend dared me to write a love scene. One with actual kissing and, uhm, groping, and stuff. Risque, especially if you were fourteen years old and educated in an all-girls private school since kindergarten. All the love scenes I know were culled from Judith McNaught novels and Johanna Lindsey prototypes of wham-bam-thank-you-mam. All I know is I hated those love scenes because it always felt impersonal, not to mention overtly romanticized. So when I wrote my story, I ended up with a scenario that put together these elements in some haphazard manner: depressed guy, concerned girl, lots of facial hair (on the guy, of course), a razor blade, soap and the girl's warm hands shaving off the gunk off his face (and no, they didn't get freaky). My friend thought it was superbl...