They say to write what you know. What they don't tell you is how vulnerable it will make you to others if you ever share your work or if, God forbid, your words are ever exposed to others without your consent.
To open up your inner most thoughts to total strangers is no small feat. On the other hand, it's safer, baring your soul to total strangers than to people you know or sometimes even people you love.
Online makes this especially easy I suppose. With the security of a screen in front of you, you never have to see the looks on their faces when they realize just how dark your thoughts can be. Even if a stranger does judge you, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as when someone close to you does.
The other problem with sharing your work with people you know is that often times they pull it apart, piece by piece, trying to find themselves in it and totally missing what you're actually trying to say because of course you wrote about them. How could you not?
If they discover that you haven't, they get upset, that they weren't important enough to make into into your work because, how hard can it be to write about them? Or maybe worse yet, if you do write about them and they don't like what you wrote. How could you say that? Why would you write that?
There's really no winning when it comes to that sort of thing. Even strangers will not always like what you have to say but at least they won't be offended that you haven't made your writing about them. Who knows, they may even find a small part of themselves in your writing and connect with you.
Sometimes it's good for the reader and the writer. It can let them both know that they aren't alone.
Writing is largely a solitary activity. Most writers need a quiet peaceful place to connect with their thoughts. Sometimes that's a curse. We can get so lost in ourselves that we forget others exist, that a world outside of writing is still moving without us.
Writing what you know isn't always easy. even if some people think it is. A lot of times, it requires you to dig into old memories you'd rather keep forgotten. Or brings up old emotions you'd rather let lie in peace. Writing is such a personal thing, sometimes it can difficult to share with others.
In every story, every poem, there is a kernel of truth no matter how buried or changed it may be. There is always an emotional truth in every written piece.
This idea takes form in my art. Everything comes more discreet when you pass it off through art but in the end, they would rarely receive the feelings as what writing does. Sometimes it's good, no one dares look that deep into your soul but sometimes it's frustrating because they focus mostly on the technique and not the content