"Write ONLY What You Know!"...Err, no

Today's Earworm: Dream On (cover) by Blacktop Mojo
Today's Date: February 20, 2017

So, I'm sure most writers when they've started out has heard the whole "Write what you know" line right? Well, it's not inherently wrong. It's really not! I promise. It's actually good advice. You should write what you know.

What I'm not fond of is the fact that a lot of people, such as teachers, fellow writers, and just those who are in our lives, all seem to use this saying in the wrong way. You can usually hear it. They say "write what you know" but you can still hear that "ONLY" in there, can't you?

It's grating. Cause you may not know something but you still want to write it, don't you? Well then, write it.

And here is where there's going to be a bit of well meaning sarcasm. You do know...that there is a service online called Google right? You can open a new tab and type in google.com, which will take you to a search page. From there, you can type in what you want to learn about and find hundreds of pages of sites that can tell you all about that subject.

Or you know those buildings with all those books? Where you can get a card and borrow those books for a couple of weeks? There are a lot of books about all sorts of subjects in that building. It's called a Library.

And you know, learning about something new? That's called...research.

Okay, I'm done being rather sarcastic. Something about people not remembering that we never stop learning. Even as adults. If you're not learning something, it can get really, really boring in life.

What I'm saying is that even if you don't know a subject, you have a wide variety of ways to learn about that subject.

You want to learn about the paranormal? Go to google, go to Bing, go to the library. Lookup 'paranormal', 'ghosts', 'supernatural'. I'll bet you ten to one that you'll find more than a few options.

You want to learn about fairies? Again, go to google, bing, library, where ever and look up 'fairies'. You'll find a lot of options again.

You have a lot of options at your finger tips guys. It's not that hard to find that information. Even before the internet, I was able to discover so much about my favorite subjects. Books were my best friends. Book stores, libraries, yard sales, what have you.

I researched.

And I learned.

What? Did you think Tolkien know everything about the beings that he wrote? No. He used his life to build the world that he created in his stories, and memories of the books that he enjoyed through his life to create the beings within.

He learned about that world as he built it.

Do you think your favorite author knows everything about their story when they first start building?

No. They to learned, researched, what they are writing. They build and grow. They don't say "Oh, I don't know this so I can't write this".

So when I hear "Write only what you know!", I have to say "No". I'm going to write what I want to write and I don't know anything about that, I'll research.

It's the 21st century, guys. Ignore the idiots who try to stunt you and learn what you want to know.