Autobiographical? No. But Life Experience is My Writing Partner

"Is Maddie based on you?"

It's the question I get most often from readers, and I understand why. When you read about Maddie navigating boardrooms as the only woman engineer, or facing subtle discrimination on international projects, there's an authenticity there that feels lived-in. And in a way, it is.

But here's the thing: I've never worked as a structural engineer in 1960s Toronto, never been sent alone to oversee a construction project in Japan, and I certainly wasn't born in 1938. So no, Out of Time and Next Time aren't autobiographical. But my life experience? That's been an essential writing partner from day one.

When Professional Experience Becomes Fictional Fuel

My M.Sc. and career as a hydrogeologist in an environmental consulting firm definitely informed my understanding of the challenges Maddie would have faced as the sole female engineer in her firm. Despite the fact that my career was decades later than hers, there were still remarkably few women in senior roles at our company. In fact, during all the years I worked there, there were no female hydrogeologists or engineer partners. None.

That experience gave me insight into what it feels like to be professionally competent yet somehow still having to prove yourself in ways your male colleagues never do. The questioning of your technical judgment, the surprise when clients realize you're the lead expert, the way some people address questions to the man standing beside you even when you're clearly running the meeting.

I also had the experience of being the only woman on an international project – not Japan like Maddie, but Malaysia, where I experienced discrimination on multiple fronts. Primarily for being a female expert in my field, but also for not sharing the same religious and cultural background as my Malay clients. The professional isolation, the careful navigation of cultural expectations I didn't fully understand, the weight of representing not just myself but somehow all Western women in my field – those feelings became part of Maddie's emotional landscape.

The Art of Borrowing Emotions, Not Events

But here's where fiction writing gets interesting: I borrow emotions, not events.

Maddie's specific experiences in Japan are nothing like mine in Malaysia. Her technical challenges, her living arrangements, even the discrimination she faces – it's all different. But the feeling of being professionally out of place? The exhaustion of constantly proving yourself? The way isolation can make you question your own competence even when you know better? Those emotions I borrowed wholesale.

This is what I mean when I say life experience is my writing partner. I've never been a 78-year-old woman reflecting on a life of choices, but I have felt the weight of wondering "what if I'd chosen differently?" I've never been widowed after a long marriage, but I have experienced the particular loneliness that comes from losing someone who understood your history. I've never been courted by someone in their eighties, but I know what it feels like when someone sees you – really sees you – in a way that catches you completely off guard.

The Alchemy of Authentic Fiction

The alchemy happens when you take those authentic emotions and pour them into completely different circumstances. Suddenly, fictional situations have real weight because they're built on the foundation of genuine feeling, even if the events themselves never happened.

This is why readers can sense authenticity even in stories that are pure imagination. It's not because the facts match some hidden truth about the author's life – it's because the emotional core rings true. When Maddie feels overwhelmed by the expectations placed on pioneering women, or when she struggles with the loneliness of always being the "first" and "only," those feelings come from a real place, even if the specific situations are invented.

I think this is why some of my most powerful scenes are ones that have no basis in my actual experience. I've never faced rejection from a partner's adult child who resents me for taking their deceased mother's place, but I have felt the complicated mix of love, hurt, and hope that comes with difficult relationships. I've never faced the social pressures of being an unmarried professional woman in the 1960s, but I understand what it means to make choices that others don't understand.

Beyond Personal Experience: Universal Emotional Truth

The result is fiction that feels true without being autobiographical – stories that resonate because they're built on authentic emotional foundations, even when the circumstances are completely imagined.

This approach has taught me something profound about human connection: our emotions are far more universal than our experiences. While I may never have lived through Maddie's specific challenges, the feelings that drive her decisions – the fear of vulnerability, the satisfaction of professional achievement, the longing for connection, the weight of responsibility – these are emotions that transcend specific circumstances.

It's also why research and life experience work so well together in fiction. The research gives me the external details that make a world believable – the right terminology, the accurate historical context, the authentic professional challenges. But life experience provides the internal landscape – the emotional truth that makes readers care about what happens to these people.

The Writer's Invisible Partnership

When readers tell me that Maddie feels "real" to them, they're responding to this invisible partnership between imagination and experience. They're sensing the authenticity of borrowed emotions even when they don't know – and don't need to know – which feelings came from my life and which came from my imagination.

This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of fiction writing for me: the way personal truth can illuminate universal truth, even when filtered through completely fictional circumstances. Every writer brings their own emotional vocabulary to their work, and that vocabulary becomes the bridge between invented characters and real human connection.

The stories aren't autobiographical, but they're deeply personal in ways that matter more than factual accuracy. They're built on the foundation of genuine feeling, authentic emotion, and real understanding of what it means to navigate the complexities of being human – even when the specific circumstances are entirely imagined.

What about you? Whether you're a writer or not, have you noticed how your life experiences show up in unexpected ways – in how you understand other people's situations, in the stories that move you most, in the advice you give? I'd love to hear about a time when your own emotions helped you understand something completely outside your experience.