“You gotta remember in the entire history of the universe…you’re the only ‘you’ that has ever existed and ever will exist. There’s nobody in existence who is you, and no one can ever see the world the way you see it and can tell the rest of us how it looks. And it might be so different and so beautiful that it changes everything.”

The words are writer Grant Morrison’s, from a talk he gave in 2008 with My Chemical Romance singer and writer of the comic Umbrella Academy, Gerard Way. Never mind if you think the concept is pretentious, grandiose. Put aside those presuppositions and embrace what Grant is saying as if it really is true.

And, guess what, that is how things are. If you’re going to have a manifesto to pin up by your computer, that’s a fine one. And why not have a manifesto? Too many creators lack real ambition for themselves or their work, and I’d like to see more people aiming for the stars and not settling for the soaps.

Having a vision is all about carving out territory that you’d like to occupy. And — guess what — as per Grant’s words you already have what’s most important for establishing a niche; your unique vantage point on the universe.

I wouldn’t have devised The Sharp End, my series about drugs workers, and written the pilot episode, without having various run-ins with drugs earlier in my life, and then becoming friends with not one or two but four drugs workers. The film concept I’m fleshing out from its treatment at the moment owes a lot to my first hand experience of the mental health system. The treatment I recently developed on holiday draws on my friend Vicki’s experience of the UK and mine of Australia. And so on.

All of which is not to say ‘write what you know’ — that’s too simplistic a stricture. But whether you put or find yourself in interesting situations, you can be sure they’ll give you something to think about, and write about, at a later point. And even if you don’t believe you’ve done anything out of the ordinary (which itself would be striking and unusual), then you can still conjure something from what mundanity feels like.

We wouldn’t have Kafka, or at any rate the adjective Kafka-esque, without him having worked in insurance. For better or worse, bookstores wouldn’t be clogged with misery memoirs if people didn’t believe that sharing their grief would help them, if only financially. And Billie Piper wouldn’t have played an escort on screen if Belle de Jour hadn’t blogged about her experiences in that world.

So, presumably Grant Morrison has a secret superhero identity that enables him to write the likes of All-Star Superman and Batman and Robin? Well, no. But he takes another route, turning his life experience and using it metaphorically. And once you’re into that realm, the world is your lobster. (Metaphor, see?)

Cast your feelings and thoughts out into the realm where stories lie, and you’ll bring in a rich haul of books you were read as a child, comics you read under the sheets with a torch, tv programmes that spooked you and left you unable to turn the lights out, puppet shows that captivated you with their berserk imagination, and films that echoed legends you loved when you came across them in a library. And it’s from that swirling galaxy of fiction and the truth that lies behind it you’ll find inspiration for your own imaginings, when you get in touch with it.

Does any of this guarantee you success as a writer? If you’re talking commercial success, not as such. But connecting to your creativity is its own reward, and will give you the fuel to keep going when you’re embarking on the business of writing, of competitions and deadlines and submission and rejection…the path you take before hopefully discovering that writing can be a professional as well as a personal path.