Pipsta said:
I've just started EE2 and someone who did EE2 a few years back told me that using a personal experience as a basis for your story is a good thing(?). If that were the case can I write about the sort of trials and tribulations of having a chronic illness? Or does that fall under the done-to-death 'teenage angst/wallowing/my life is sooo hard... waaaa' category?
I wouldn't say it falls under that category, unless you write it in such a way that it
appears to be able to be classified as that.
I can empathise -- I used the personal experience of my mother dying as the underlying focus of my Major Work this year. I think that it
can give you an advantage, in that you have the memories and experience to make the themes and concepts explicit in your MW. The way you go about writing your story, though, also plays a major part in the scheme of things; if you choose to document a personal experience, and you have the emotions and the personal nature of the experience there in the story, it'll be strong.
So I'd say if that's the thing you want to do, by all means, go for it!