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Look y’all, it’s true that your stories shouldn’t just be recitations of your own life experiences unless it’s an actual autobiography. But the whole reason we make art is to communicate! And your experiences are obviously going to influence what you want to communicate about! Use your own experience as liberally as you like. It will certainly add an air of authenticity to the story if nothing else.

You might also be overestimating what looks like a ripoff. Stephen King doesn’t own scary clowns and J.K. Rowling doesn’t own redheaded families. Just make sure you look at how you’re using elements that seem similar to other authors’ work and make sure you’re not doing the same things with them. If you actually are ripping off the Weasley siblings and all you did was make them blonds, that’s going to show anyway; it’s not the superficial details that make something a ripoff. But there’s no rule that you can’t do something if you got it from somewhere that didn’t originate in your head. That’s what living in the world is about, and you can and should make art about it!