"The first step to becoming a better writer is believing your own experience is worth writing about."
Peter Marmorek
I really like this quote, it reminds me that even though I haven't lived a particularly glamorous life doesn't mean I'm not capable of writing some very interesting stories.
I recall, years ago, seeing an author interviewed and asked how she came up with such wonderful details for her stories. She looked surprised and puzzled for a second, and I realized right then that even though she was now famous and well known, she wasn't always that way. There was a time that she was just an ordinary, everyday person who wanted to write.
She used places and people she knew in her stories, with modifications of course. If she wrote about the beach, she had been to that beach, and if she wrote about a coffee shop, she had been to that coffee shop. Perhaps, that actual beach or coffee shop doesn't look quite the same in her books as it does in real life, but then, she's an author, she has the privilege of being able to create a whole new place.
Writing about places you haven't actually been to can be difficult and can leave readers annoyed if not done well. Getting the details of where the city hall building is wrong can really aggravate some readers. But if you've visited the locale, you can give an authenticity that someone who's only read about a place cannot. It helps give your story more of a sense of realism and can keep your reader from remembering this isn't reality, it's only a story.
Anyone's personal experiences can be interesting, given the right presentation.
