Do we always draw from our own experiences?

We experience many events in our lives, don't we? So as writers, surely we take events from our own lives, our feelings, and express this through our workings. Personally, I believe that this should be taken with a pinch of salt; there may not be a straightforward answer. After all, some lives are more 'hectic' than others.

Let’s be honest, we all can stretch the truth a bit from time to time, or just downright lie through our teeth. Do we write about our own experiences? Well in a module on Textual Intervention I, I wrote an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James (and my lovely self). It was in the perspective of the children’s uncle. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not a man (just checking this bit out), nor have I ever lived in the 1800s (just casually waiting around for The Doctor). Did I research it? Yes. Did I write from my own experiences where I own a big-ass estate? YES!  NO!

That’s not to say that other don’t use their experiences; Stephen King wrote a memoir after he was struck by a car. He also mentions ‘The Liars’ Club’, a memoir by Mary Karr. King states: “Not just by its ferocity, its beauty, and by her delightful grasp of the vernacular, but by its totality – she is a woman who remembers everything about her early years.”1 

1. Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (London: New English Library; 2000; P.3)

How is it that I became a writer?

During today's first Author Study session, I think I have asked myself far more questions on my ability to write than I possibly ever have done before. That's not to say that I don't question it, I'm not sure if there's really a writer who doesn't. I was asked earlier "who do I write for?”, and whilst I have an answer so complex that it requires a degree in brain surgery, down to the bare bones of it; me. It will always be for me.

I think the real question is 'what defines you to a deemed as a true writer?'. After all, we all write, don't we? I understand that, for me at least, I can lock-in to raw emotions and portray it as how a character feels, but I'm not sure that it’s really enough on its own.

Everyone can ideally be considered a writer in an ideal world, but then again, what is a 'writer', and is having your heart in the right place enough? If we look at someone like Emily Dickinson, we learn that her work was written for her own pleasure; she was her own audience, in a way. Does that information make her any less important in the history of authors than that of, say, Jane Austen? Granted, they were alive at slightly different times, and had different audiences, but we wouldn't be studying Dickinson if she wasn't as important, right?

It just goes to show that what may not appear an important factor to you, means the world to someone else. Now’s here’s some images of Austen’s legacy (ah, Winchester):