The best example of writing material is your own experience.

I mean, you can write all kinds of hypothetical scenarios…

But there is power in writing what you know from your perspective.

This is why my pieces that have packed the most punch are about Saudi Arabia, airports, local breakfast spots, and my grandparents.

Larry McMurtry could never get away from that hill in Archer City, and my guess is that your writing won’t be able to either.

Keep going back to what you know.

I guess it’s true for comedy too:

I was able to maintain a personal relationship with Johnny over the next thirty years, at least as personal as he or I could make it, and I was flattered that he came to respect my comedy. On one of my appearances, after he had done a solid impression of Goofy the cartoon dog, he leaned over to me during a commercial and whispered prophetically, “You’ll use everything you ever knew.” He was right; twenty years later I did my teenage rope tricks in the movie ¡Three Amigos!

-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (Amazon)