This week I'm on vacation in Las Vegas. It's a weird place, but a lot of fun.
Every cab ride offers a different perspective on life. One driver back in December put on a little show, starting with a poll of who I was voting for for president (choices included the woman, the old man, the haircut or the redneck bible-thumper). When I said I was planning to vote for Obama, he laughed and shook his head, stating that while *he* was OK with it, the rest of the country would never go black. Last night, we got a driver who relayed stories of two fares he'd picked up that attempted to commit suicide by cop. Today we got one who knew every meteorological detail (hottest days/coldest days) from the last decade in excruciating detail.
When one driver took us an alternate route to the Bellagio for dinner the other night, I asked the veiled question "is this way faster?". He saw through me, though, and said, "When a pretty girl comes up to you and comes on to you, you don't ask if she's old enough. You just play the hand out and see what you can get." I spent the rest of the ride assuring him I wasn't questioning his honesty, though I kind of was. BTW--his way was half the time of the scenic route we'd taken the night before.
Anyway, if you're going to write, you need to live life. Not saying you should take the hobo route that Kerouac took to get to DHARMA BUMS or ON THE ROAD, but you can't just stay cooped up in whatever space you write in and try to tell something real. People see through it and it just comes out like a retread of better stories already told.
In writing advice, I always see the same trope: write what you know.
The more life you live, the more you know and can write about.
