On the face of it, ‘write what you know’ has to be the most restrictive adage to confront the would-be writer. For a start, it rules out most genre writing, assuming you’ve not been involved in a space battle, been hired to find a missing child, or swung your sword against an ogre. And given the amount of dross in genre fiction, maybe that’s not bad advice.

Only, what are we left with at that point? Dreary novels about adultery imagined and not acted on? Definitive accounts of the working lives of architects, suntan technicians and tarmac specialists with a hankering to write a novel? Stories that elevate the mundane into something not really like art? That way lies madness, or at least an endless round of Nick Hornby imitators and tales of dismal childhood…hmm, pretty much what you’ll find an abundance of in book stores.

‘Write what you know’ is not much use taken at face value then. But treated as an endorsement to write what you know about through your emotional life, it releases endless possibilities for writing. I’ve never had an archenemy, but there are a few people in my life I’d have gladly tossed off a waterfall at one point or another. I’ve never colonised an alien planet, but I’ve spent months living in another culture, one where the fact that the language was shared didn’t mean that many assumptions were. I’ve never performed on the main stage at Glastonbury with a band, but I’ve performed poetry as an amateur alongside professionals and been as well received as they were.

Very rarely do the scripts I’ve written correspond with the facts of my life. But more often than not, there are ideas that I’m passionate about, emotions I feel, concepts that matter to me. Those are as much a part of ‘what I know’ as the mere details of my life, and are much more important when it comes to writing.

I’m currently researching a tv drama set in a 1980s counterculture I’ve seen precious little drama about, let alone any that has the right feel when I compare it to my own experiences of that world and the people who inhabited it. My personal experience will be useful as a benchmark, but where the script will come alive is when I combine it with research and a compelling - fictional - story. Sure, there’s a strong element of reality to what I’m writing about, but I’m not devising a documentary and feel no obligation to be restricted to the facts as they’ve been recorded (…and in this instance, some of the relevant information has been expunged from the records of contemporary newspapers with help from security services).

Veracity without drama is lifeless. Drama without emotional veracity is empty. Tread a path where your own emotions inform the choices you make in a story, and you have the capacity to create something interesting. This, by the way, doesn’t mean wallowing in your emotions and using them as an opportunity to lament the end of your relationship with the heartless so-and-so who left you high and dry when you had a fleeting affair with their best friend. That way lies self-indulgence.

The trick here, and I’d recommend meditation classes if it doesn’t come naturally, is to shift between feeling and listening to your emotions as they were at the time, and viewing what happened with empathy for all involved. Approached in that manner, you can create rounded characters for all the parts required, rather than creating an improbably angelic version of yourself and mere puppets for anyone else.

Bloody hell, this writing lark gets pretty complicated, and into some rich psychological and philosophical territory. Well, yes. Enjoy the journey though, and please try to distinguish between a bit of necessary navel gazing and disappearing up your arse.