Writing Wednesdays #6: Write What You Don't Know

[While the blog is out of town over New Year's, here's a reader-favorite post to tide us all over.  Happy New Year!:]

Probably the most classic kernel of writing advice is "Write What You Know." On the surface, that seems to make a lot of sense, and I'm sure it has worked for thousands and thousands of writers. It didn't work for me.

When I was a beginning writer I had two literary heroes: Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway. A lot of aspiring writers in my era had those guys as heroes. Kerouac...