Writing gurus, teachers, whatever they like to call themselves always tell you -
Write about what you know.
Work in genres you like. Talk about things you've experienced or subjects you're interested in.
Which, as it goes, is pretty sound advice, because writing can be a hard enough process to get right without adding further complications such as writing about something you really can't understand or empathise with.
But the crazy thing about this industry is that whenever there's a hit, everyone tries to follow it up by emulating it all over again.
I wonder how many sci-fi mystery thrillers, starring a group of geeky adolescents, have been sent to the commissioning folk since the phenomenal success of Stranger Things?
Me though, I tend to avoid trying to follow everyone else - and tend to just follow my heart in its place. It feels better that way.
Because I know no matter how amazing Stranger Things is - the script, the story, the premise, the clever twists, the strong, can't-choose-between-them-all characters (the list is endless...) - I am never going to write a Stranger Things myself.
I'm just not that into Sci-Fi mystery thrillers.
And yet the Duffer brothers have done it so well, they've made me fall in love with a previously, unexplored genre (for me), like a whole legion of other fans.
Likewise, I can't ever see myself writing a period drama. And there's not many historical figures whose stories I've wanted to turn into a film or book either (although recently I found someone I'd love to write about).
I don't think I'll ever write a war movie - and I'm pretty sure I'll never write a horror movie.
Instead, I tend to write in the genre I am drawn to -
Funny, gritty, realistic dramas. Stories that carry with them a message. Characters that are rich and complicated. Stories that could be someone's real-life story, played out on screen for us to share.
I also thought I would never in my life find myself writing about love.
Mainly because of the way it's portrayed in movies - as this sickly sweet, over the top, rosy kind of existence. Which is not what real love is about.
Real love isn't about staring adoringly into someone's eyes or showering them with gifts. Real love is more about falling in love with someone for the person that they are. Being there for someone no matter what, and loving them enough to want to stay and wanting their happiness as much as your own. Which, by the way, is why The Notebook is one of my favourite love stories - because it's real and not some glitzed-up, glammed-up romantic comedy.
Plus how on earth do you manage to capture in words and feelings that crazy chemical, biological, visceral explosion that goes to make up 'love'?
So yes.
It's all felt far too complicated to write about before.
But that was then.
This is now.
And as crazy as this is - having said I would never write a love story - now I'm writing two in one!
Lily's and Liam's.
But because they've both got so much backstory and their pasts have had such a strong impact on their present and how they are now, all of it makes the act of writing about love SO much more enjoyable than I thought it would be.
Lily - my beautiful, ever-curious, feisty old lady. Searching for an old flame - a forbidden love from her past, cruelly cut short before she even had time to explore where it might go.
Then Liam, young and modern. Deserving of love - but too scared to let his heart go after losing both his parents when he was younger.
It's all that history that makes their love stories so interesting to write. And now I'm finding myself loving the fact I followed my heart on this one, and stuck my neck out in a bid to try and capture each of their 'true love' stories.
To me it's the struggle for love that feels more real.
I love the fact that despite Lily suffering two major heartbreaks in her life - losing her first love and then her husband - she is still able to tell Liam that love is worth the hurt that follows. That the joy far outweighs the hurt.
We can all identify with that, right?
After all, we all keep coming back for more, despite what love throws at us.
I think, probably, in amongst all that there's a lesson in there for all us writers.
How we might think we'll never write about something, but how one day we might.
Because if humans can grow as they learn, then so too can we writers.
Yes I said I'd never write about love.
But I'm older now. Which means I get Liam's fear, his trepidation, his struggle to let go. I also get Lily's acknowledgement that despite everything, the struggle and the heartache involved, it was all worth it.
And knowing that - writing about that - feels good.
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