I finally came to the conclusion that, like a lot of advice, you had to moderate it to suit. If you start thinking in terms of what you like, love, are interested in, are prepared to find out about i.e. research, and we all know about writers and research …
If you are curious, then you can go on the journey with your protagonist. And of course the Internet is a boon – which is one of the reasons you should never look at a writer’s browsing history, if they write crime. There’s a hint in that too – write what you know – but I don’t think that any of my crime writer friends are serial killers in real life. I hope not!!! But they can tap into imagination and emotion. We’ve probably all had times when we have felt we wanted to murder someone. Thankfully it usually lasts only a few seconds, but in those seconds it’s there. And your imagination does the rest. And all the other human emotions too – love, envy, home-sickness, regret, jealousy, contentment …
I‘ve reached the conclusion that the mantra needs to be ‘Write something that interests you – preferably something that excites you.’ And this may not be something from everyday life. As an historian, I should probably be writing historicals, but that’s never been what really attracted me.
Except … I have a new idea, and disconcertingly it is playing into lots of things that I actually know – or think I do. It’s not in any danger of being written any time soon, or even ever, but it’s always fun to day dream.