Real life reflected in your writing

[MaudeBlack]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.
I've been reflecting on my writing during this period and have realised that being poorly has coloured my work in quite an interesting way.

During my hospital stay I was probed, prodded and processed and felt little more than a body for medical staff to assess (That's there job, no slight on them. God love the NHS).
I've written several stories where women lose their identity. One into servitude. One to physical and mental bimbofication and another to her sexual appetite being increased beyond her control.
I don't think it's an unfair leap to suggest I'm struggling with feelings of anonymity, loss of desire and identity.

I've also written a story about a horrible guy who is becomes a sissy. Perhaps me trying to reflect an element of femininity onto an otherwise bleak situation?

I also wrote a cuck story and posted it on Loving Wives, knowing full well it would be 1-star bombed and cause the natives to loose their shit at me - perhaps I was seeking a pain distraction?

I am currently working on a personal story about my first time experience with anal sex. It also includes a lot of my thoughts on control and submission. It's the most explicit and honest thing I've written about myself.
Dare I say it, I'm actually quite proud of how it's coming together and is unapologetically me. Perhaps the probing has made me more open (pun intended) to sharing intimate details?

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post...perhaps I just wanted to acknowledge it for myself, that what's happening in my real life affects my writing. Which, as a very new writer is probably quite an important realisation to make.

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

Just curious, I guess.

Look after your health.

Xx

 

[MrPixel]

Absolutely. I had a myocardial infarction followed by a stroke several years ago, and many aspects of the hospital experience including technical details made it into a story as something the MMC was going through. I turned a near-miss into a fun bit of writing, especially when a cute nurse was brought into the cast of characters.

 

[StillStunned]

One story that was supposed to be a fairly lighthearted fairy tale morphed into a dark exploration of introversion. In the winter I struggle to write anything breezy, but in the spring and summer my stories tend to be more positive.

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.

Best of luck with your recovery!

 

[Writer61]

Many of my stories include scenes based on RL experiences and places I have been to, often modified and reassembled into different stories. But they are pale reflections that I don't consider to be personal in any meaningful sense. However, I have started writing a piece inspired by some currently ongoing RL experience. I don't know how it will work out in reality or on the page, but if it works, I hope that it will be more personal.

Hope you feel better soon.

 

[PennameWombat]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.
I've been reflecting on my writing during this period and have realised that being poorly has coloured my work in quite an interesting way.
<snip>

My best wishes for your continued recovery.

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post...perhaps I just wanted to acknowledge it for myself, that what's happening in my real life affects my writing. Which, as a very new writer is probably quite an important realisation to make.

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

Just curious, I guess.

Look after your health.

Xx

For me, writing is my escape. Which means, I don't write autobiographical stories, and I don't want to reflect my real life in my stories. I do pull bits. For instance, I've had characters suffer a couple of the same sports injuries as I suffered in long ago times. Not because it was reflection or anything, it was because I could realistically portray the effects, treatment and recovery. Thus adding to the verisimilitude of the stories. I also have my characters work in jobs that I've had, again, because I can accurately portray without having to do a ton of research.

But the specifics of those injuries and the events around those working those jobs is purely out of my imagination.

The way real life affects me is by preventing me from writing. If I can't get to the mind space that has nothing to do with what's actually happening, I can't/don't write. Which is probably why my output is sporadic. The worst thing I could do is actually write about myself, or what's happening in my life. If it's bad, it's rough enough I'm forced to live it, the thought of also writing about it, sorry, that's a level of awful I can't deal with.

Plenty of bad things happen to many of my characters, but those are all things that happen to them and are based around whatever logic the story needs. For instance, an alien has never taken over my brain, but it's happened in my stories. Characters have been killed by nanobots. A woman fell in love with a humanoid bot. A spaceship full of aliens spying on Earth crashed in northern Nevada.

So, in a way, writing for me is therapy, but only by not reflecting anything non-trivial that's actually in my life. And I have to be able to get that remove to write.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

I have several many stories that start out as true-to-life recounts, that at a certain point veer off into fantasy. I often wonder whether readers will spot the exact sentence that separates the truth from the fantasy. I suspect many wouldn't.

I have one completely autobiographical story - Memory and Loss, the title explains it all. All true.

The following stories have major elements of reality anchoring the stories:

- The Floating World, especially the three vignettes at the beginning of Chapter 1.
- The first section of The Madelyn Chapters, up until the MC goes into his place of work.
- The same young woman then inspired Maddy in The Hyacinth House, and her house is somewhere I've been to several times.
- An illicit friendship sits underneath We'll Need to Change the Sheets, which gets told in that story. A real experience with my breastfeeding wife also sits behind a key element of the same story.
- my years in college sit behind Seventy Thirty, which started off being more autobiographical but for some reason I found I couldn't write the story I started, so I wrote another one, a little less anchored in truth.
- The opening scene in Honey Tastes Better From the Pot actually happened, the two women are then based on women I know, who then get more to say in some of the Emma and Bobbie stories.
- Rope and Veil is set where I live, and Amelia's apartment is based on a design of a place I did for my daughter, that never got built. The beach in the second chapter is the one I went to every summer for many years, to a summer house my parents built, and where my dad died.
- Ditto the beach in Songs of Seduction, Water.
- The Chickadee Connection was written for someone in Canada.
- The first three chapters of A Girl on the Bus are sorta-kinda true.
- Brooke really did work in the Hardware Store, as did Melissa.
- Helen in Dear Helen is an old school friend.
- Sara in A Love Song for Sara is a real person, although she never did life modelling (but I have).
- Ann is a real person, although that's not her name.

In other words, there's a lot of my life in my stories, and a lot of the sex is as I remembered. There's also a lot of embroidery, but that's what the words are for.

 

[Erozetta]

Yeah, most of my stories have elements of my real life in them. Most of which is introspection around depression or trauma. Some of it is fond memories of specific people.

A good portion is a blend of genuine real life and fiction.

Any story that mentions thoughts or attempts at suicide is based on real life. The situation is most likely real. The thoughts/feelings/sensations are absolutely going to be mine from the same or similar experiences.

Writing helps me process stuff. My life has had some extremely dark moments and experiences.
TW: bad shit I've dealt with:



And it all intersects with my sexuality and interest in sex, so it becomes a muddied mess of eroticism and trauma blending into a hot fucking mess of human trash turned into art.

 

[SavannaT]

Each story I write is a pretty accurate depiction of my life and relationship with my husband at the time I write it, if he catches some guy staring at my tits in public and goes off on me at home or cries the husband is given a brutal but fitting end in his cuckolding in my stories. There are elements of reality in each story and sometimes I just wasn’t feeling well when I wrote em and it was healing through literary masturbation.

 

[EmilyMiller]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.
I've been reflecting on my writing during this period and have realised that being poorly has coloured my work in quite an interesting way.

During my hospital stay I was probed, prodded and processed and felt little more than a body for medical staff to assess (That's there job, no slight on them. God love the NHS).
I've written several stories where women lose their identity. One into servitude. One to physical and mental bimbofication and another to her sexual appetite being increased beyond her control.
I don't think it's an unfair leap to suggest I'm struggling with feelings of anonymity, loss of desire and identity.

I've also written a story about a horrible guy who is becomes a sissy. Perhaps me trying to reflect an element of femininity onto an otherwise bleak situation?

I also wrote a cuck story and posted it on Loving Wives, knowing full well it would be 1-star bombed and cause the natives to loose their shit at me - perhaps I was seeking a pain distraction?

I am currently working on a personal story about my first time experience with anal sex. It also includes a lot of my thoughts on control and submission. It's the most explicit and honest thing I've written about myself.
Dare I say it, I'm actually quite proud of how it's coming together and is unapologetically me. Perhaps the probing has made me more open (pun intended) to sharing intimate details?

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post...perhaps I just wanted to acknowledge it for myself, that what's happening in my real life affects my writing. Which, as a very new writer is probably quite an important realisation to make.

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

Just curious, I guess.

Look after your health.

Xx

My work is suffused with the good, bad, and kinda crazy things that have happened in my life. Sometimes it’s shadowy reflections, sowmtimes it’s a handful of details adding verisimilitude to an otherwise fabricated story, sometimes it’s a thin veneer on top of autobiography or biography of people I know.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.

 

[Dearelliot]

Things I've done, and want to do, and women I've known but embellished a little...

 

[jonnoback]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.
I've been reflecting on my writing during this period and have realised that being poorly has coloured my work in quite an interesting way.

During my hospital stay I was probed, prodded and processed and felt little more than a body for medical staff to assess (That's there job, no slight on them. God love the NHS).
I've written several stories where women lose their identity. One into servitude. One to physical and mental bimbofication and another to her sexual appetite being increased beyond her control.
I don't think it's an unfair leap to suggest I'm struggling with feelings of anonymity, loss of desire and identity.

I've also written a story about a horrible guy who is becomes a sissy. Perhaps me trying to reflect an element of femininity onto an otherwise bleak situation?

I also wrote a cuck story and posted it on Loving Wives, knowing full well it would be 1-star bombed and cause the natives to loose their shit at me - perhaps I was seeking a pain distraction?

I am currently working on a personal story about my first time experience with anal sex. It also includes a lot of my thoughts on control and submission. It's the most explicit and honest thing I've written about myself.
Dare I say it, I'm actually quite proud of how it's coming together and is unapologetically me. Perhaps the probing has made me more open (pun intended) to sharing intimate details?

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post...perhaps I just wanted to acknowledge it for myself, that what's happening in my real life affects my writing. Which, as a very new writer is probably quite an important realisation to make.

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

Just curious, I guess.

Look after your health.

Xx

I think it's also partly that you're actually here writing and is a natural progression that you would include some - or more - real life experiences either directly or use them to influence you stories. And as you write more and you start thinking about the next story then it's only natural that you'll look to real life for inspiration whether it be to record it (to some extent) or simply for a story idea. And the sharing of more intimate details is partly a reflection of how comfortable you are with writing, with being here and fundamentally, just sharing as writing about yourself is therapeutic.

And I'll love reading whatever you write whenever you publish it

 

[Hampshiregirl]

First and foremost, Maude, get well soon.

As for stories reflecting real life, in my case it depends on the element. For example, I often refer to BDSM or D/S themes, but have never really experienced any of that stuff in reality. Bisexual women feature heavily, though, probably because I am one myself.

I usually set the story in Hampshire (see my avatar and user name), and often draw on things that have happened with actual real people I know.

I guess the short answer to your question is 'Yes, but not completely."

HG xx.

 

[lc69hunter]

Events in our lives reflect on how we think, and how we sometimes out it to paper.
BTW, I read your cuck story over in LW. It was well written, though a little too dark for my taste. It definitely did not deserve a 1 bombing

 

[CalBishForNow]

There's a superficial way in which this is true. When I need details that aren't important either way, I'll often pull them from memory rather than make something up from scratch. The floor plan of the house my family lived in from my late teens to my mid-twenties, or the apartment I shared with my then-girlfriend, now-wife in my late twenties, or the house or neighborhood layout of certain friends of mine, or the day-to-day routine of my job pre-pandemic; it's easier to picture those than to make myself invent all the twists and turns of something out of the blue and keep it straight for as long as I'm writing about some character.

In not-superficial ways... most of my writing here has been wish fulfillment. There are exceptions, and I try to change some details so it's not too personal and I wouldn't be too mortified if someone IRL linked me to this, but still, I'm writing about people like me with much wilder sex lives than me. (Most of the time.) So that's not a reflection, except in the literal sense of the opposite or inversion of something.

I also wrote a cuck story and posted it on Loving Wives, knowing full well it would be 1-star bombed and cause the natives to loose their shit at me - perhaps I was seeking a pain distraction?

On good days, I view my LW writing as having a thick skin and braving the critics in the hopes of getting more useful constructive criticism than I'd get in other categories. On bad days, I view my LW writing as keeping expectations low. I can't blame myself for bad scores, that's just what everyone gets in LW, right? Right?

 

[Areala-chan]

I had been driving for years, and never involved in anything more serious than a minor fender-bender. Never even got a speeding ticket, and never anything that was my fault. Then, during the time when I was working on "Crash Into Me", I was driving home from work and another person pulled out across two lanes of traffic directly in front of me. I had enough time to think, "Well, this is going to suck..." and then physics took over.

Suddenly I had a lot of personal experience about what happens in a major collision that totals both vehicles, and the emotional toll it can take on the person who wasn't even at fault. Thankfully I wasn't injured beyond some minor whiplash, pulled muscles, and bruising, but I had a few days off from work in the aftermath and used that time to update and re-write some parts of "Crash" to take that experience into account. I think it made the story better, but on the whole, I'd rather have kept my car intact, thank you very much...

 

[KittyOfSteele]

"Everything you write is autobiographical, even science fiction, and the planet Ork. In some way even that is a reflection of you—who you are." Paula Fox.

I remember my mentor sharing that on his Facebook story a few years ago. I took a screenshot of it on my old phone back when I had a Facebook account, and I just recovered it. I actually wrote an essay about it where I went over everything single piece of writing I've done, abandoned, unpublished, unfinished, whatever, and found that Paula Fox is right.

The first pieces of writing I did was me coping with my harsh upbringing.

My first novel, written eleven years ago, was actually me finding out I'm transgender before realizing the egg cracked for real. An unfinished novel that followed was me trying to be aware of this new reality about myself. There were previous works that echoed this GNC reality that I go through, because the concept of gender is something that keeps being so hard to understand with every day that passes that I comprehend it less and less, to the point that I just think every time it's completely made up by everyone, even the very same people who resonate with me.

Then I planted the seeds of what would later become the AU where everything is taking place now, and it was my way of processing the dystopia I live in, after removing myself from dystopian fiction that always ended up in revolution to dystopian fiction that reflected what is like being an NPC under a socialist regime that became more and more Stalinist with every day that passed, and how slowly the zeitgeist turned to people of my age not listening to our parents and grandparents who lived under an ultra-consevative military dictatorship because they are blaming them for voting on the same issues were dealing with now, looking at history itself as propaganda, not realizing it was the very same oppression under a different color. I'm one of the unlucky few who knows what it's like being pursued by the government because they pretty much felt like pursuing everyone who had bad luck. That's why everything shifted so suddenly. That's the whole reason I wrote The Woman at the Speakeasy: I was in survival mode, and the only way I could deal with that is through writing, but I spent more time hiding than writing.

That's why No Heroes in Love is all screwed up in its world building, and has a very... artistically licensed Gnostic depiction of Cupid. There's a name that I dropped there, and that name is the protagonist of a book I decided just two days ago to slowly finish and get published some way or another; commercially, because I think I accomplished one goal I've had here, but I won't be leaving this place yet. I like it here.

I wrote that book in 2020; five years after realizing I'm transgender, and it is the last piece of non-erotic fiction I did until everything became erotica. It was for NaNoWriMo and my intention was to pretty much make Bloodsport and Kickboxer with better writing. What ended up was me putting all the things that resonated with me over those five years. I never intended that novel to be part of the AU, until it made sense it became part of it. This project also predicted me becoming a cam girl a couple of years later.

And a year after being diagnosed with ADHD, I accidentally made a cam girl have ADHD on NaNoWriMo 2024. Also, NaNoWriMo 2025 was me coping through a 6-year relationship ending very suddenly the year prior. In fact, both NaNos have the same element of my relationship ending. The one from 2024 was just a story that explored it fully, but the one from 2025 dealt exactly with both the breakup, and the political persecution.

There was also an idea for a character I made tons of years ago, and it didn't came to me until I had a nightmare and made me realize she was pretty much the girl I got refused to be.

But yeah, there's no other way around for me to say this: everything that I do is a reflection of my life, and there seems to be no exception for this. Even my D&D campaign has that. Recently I created a pocket dimension also based upon a nightmare that I've had, a nightmare so incredible I had to jot it down for something grimdark.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Definitely there's random thoughts and preoccupations that end up in my stories, from disability and health issues to anything in the news or just what's out the window. I attended a particularly boring seminar which happened to overlook the ruins of Grenfell Tower on one side (it burned down a couple years earlier) and the house of a colourful-past friend on the other. Next thing we know, my character Adrian the ex-alcoholic fire engineer is born.

I'm happy to confirm my story about someone's last Christmas isn't actually a reflection of my health - but was roughly someone else's story, personal details tweaked. On a happier note, as I do a fair bit of writing in various public spaces, I assign appearances and accents to the next attractive person who walks past.

 

[StrentWriter]

For the past month or so I've been quite unwell and ended up having a bit of a stay in my local hospital. I'm on the mend now but still a long way to go before I'll be back to my old self.
I've been reflecting on my writing during this period and have realised that being poorly has coloured my work in quite an interesting way.

During my hospital stay I was probed, prodded and processed and felt little more than a body for medical staff to assess (That's there job, no slight on them. God love the NHS).
I've written several stories where women lose their identity. One into servitude. One to physical and mental bimbofication and another to her sexual appetite being increased beyond her control.
I don't think it's an unfair leap to suggest I'm struggling with feelings of anonymity, loss of desire and identity.

I've also written a story about a horrible guy who is becomes a sissy. Perhaps me trying to reflect an element of femininity onto an otherwise bleak situation?

I also wrote a cuck story and posted it on Loving Wives, knowing full well it would be 1-star bombed and cause the natives to loose their shit at me - perhaps I was seeking a pain distraction?

I am currently working on a personal story about my first time experience with anal sex. It also includes a lot of my thoughts on control and submission. It's the most explicit and honest thing I've written about myself.
Dare I say it, I'm actually quite proud of how it's coming together and is unapologetically me. Perhaps the probing has made me more open (pun intended) to sharing intimate details?

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post...perhaps I just wanted to acknowledge it for myself, that what's happening in my real life affects my writing. Which, as a very new writer is probably quite an important realisation to make.

Have you noticed you work being affected by your real life? If there are certain themes you cover at certain times or reach a mile stone or significant life event and in shapes a piece you are working on?

Just curious, I guess.

Look after your health.

Xx

Big hugs Maude.

And yes, virtually all of my writing is drawn from real experience.

The painful lived in memories are more powerful than anything I could conjure up in my head tbh.

 

[old_prof]

I started writing last year after I had been unable to walk for several months because of a knee injury. I both looked forward to being able to pace when I was thinking about writing -- I'm naturally a pacer while I think -- and wondered if maybe being confined to a chair had led to my desire to write. Now I'm wondering more about the latter. Other than my WIWAW reflection, I've made one furtive attempt at starting a story in the three months since my surgery, after roughly 50 stories started and finished in the previous 10 months. Hopefully I'm just in a phase of not writing stories (I am doing a lot of revising of old stories).

I'm also aware that my mental state has an enormous impact on what happens in my stories. Both in my WIWAW and my recent burst of revising my stories from the last year, I see so much of what I went through emotionally in the last year. I think what's happening to you has to impact you as a writer. Or at least someone who writes like me. I feel the emotions of my characters very deeply, but I suspect they feel my emotions at least as deeply.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Way back when, I was subjecting some characters to immense suffering and hardships, likely because of all the, you know, immense suffering and hardships I was dealing with. Go figure Took me a few years to realize what I was doing and adjust.

I got nicer, though! Still dark, but dark and funny instead of agonizing with light humor elements. Hell, I can even write a whole story without a single person being maimed or traumatized now! I wrote a mother-effing ROM-COM! I wrote TWO mother-effing rom-coms! Go tell 22-year-old Anthy that shit, watch head explode at the thought.

The thing that affects me most is how think-y I'm feeling. I don't have a lot of emotional range nowadays (which is good, we don't like emotional instability), but the more think-y I am, the harder it is to write. My writing style is normally a loose-grip-on-steering-wheel approach, but when I think too much, I clutch the wheel and micromanage every little movement, editing and questioning things in real time, which kills the pace and creative flow. I need a slightly relaxed mindset when writing or else it becomes a slog.

 

[SkyBubble]

Get well, Maude.

I think it's inevitable that part of us creeps into our writing. it's how much, and in what context?

Some of my stories deal with actual experiences. Many of my female characters are modelled on women I've known. There are little details that are based on my life.

And some of it is just plain fiction.

 

[Baztrachian]

Have you noticed your work being affected by your real life?

First, my sincere best wishes for your healing.

And yes, my writing on Lit. is definitely informed by my personal life and personal experiences.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just about all of my stories reflect reality in one way or another, but mostly in the kind of way that a kaleidoscope reflects, rather than being a simple mirror.

Someone who knew me well in RL could read my stories and say "this bit comes from this experience", and they would mostly be right. (Though occasionally life has chosen to imitate something I'd already written.)

Somebody who didn't know me in RL would probably have difficulty figuring out my biography from my stories, beyond a few very basic details.

 

[PapaRomantic]

Generally, there are very few details from my real life experiences in my stories.

BUT - there are some. And one story in particular as about as autobiographical as I will get on Lit, especially during the time frame in which it was set. I still go back and read that story and experiences from my own life flood my brain. It makes me feel good to remember those days through my words.