I have a father who came from nothing and conquered the world. The last thing I'm going to do is sit here and spend his money and try to look pretty. That's not interesting to me at all.
Sure, I've had some bad times, but everybody does. But people don't get to talk about them like I do, unless they do to a therapist. People don't get to put them in the paper like I do.
I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research.