Happily I’ve never had a person actually turn around and tell me I’m not capable of doing something I’ve clearly just done, but I’ve heard this “write what you know” nonsense both ways. If I did it awesomely, it must be MY experience I’m writing! And if I haven’t had this experience, there’s no way I could write it well! Right?
Noooooope.
News flash: Figuring out how to speak and think as a different person—to present perspectives and experiences that are not our own—is pretty much WHAT WRITERS DO. Unless we are writing our autobiographies, the things we write about can’t be assumed to be representative of what we think and what we know, and we can’t be expected to restrict our writing to presenting only points of view or experiences that are copied verbatim from our own heads.