I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “Write what you know.” I mentioned this notion to my sister writer who quoted back to me (not knowing know the source), “That should leave you with a lot of free time.”
At the moment that’s meaningful because I am starting a new book about a subject about which I know something, but not a great deal. Or, I should say, what I do know about the subject is based only on personal experience. That’s not enough. What I am doing, therefore, is interviewing people in the know—a lot of them—about the subject. The point is, I don’t just gather the information for which I am looking, the people I interview—knowing that I am a writer—start telling me stories. That in turn alters the story I am going to write, adding twists, turns, and might I add, reality. Most of all it adds depth, because these stories force me to look at my subject in a new way, to know something beyond writing what I know.
That should use up a lot of my free time.