"Write what you know" isn't meant to be a limit...

Yes -- that's very nicely put. . . And I certainly agree that writing what you know is going to improve one's writing a lot more often than it won't! If one is stuck writing about the same-old, same-old the problem doesn't point to not knowing much, but to not delving into all the other things you could push yourself to write about. Another example of bad writing, even?

I've kind of taken "write what you know" to be an invitation to KNOW MORE STUFF. This has certainly been the case when working on THE QUILL. I've done more research on this darned thing than I did on my capstone project at UMD, to the point where I was watching a History Channel special on stolen antiquities tonight and I knew (almost) all the stories before the voice-over guy got to tell us about them.

The only problem? The minute I finish this book, all that acquired knowledge will become essentially useless, and I'll have to go out and learn MORE STUFF to write the NEXT book. Sigh.