If writers stuck to firsthand experience, novels would be pretty limited.
Whenever I pick up a book I think, "Tell me something I don't know."
I don't think I could write about someone I didn't feel some sympathy for.
Gypsies are, to say the least, underrepresented in literature and film.
Endings are never neat, because when life goes on, there is no end. You may want to speculate about what the characters get up to afterwards, but I feel it would be presumptuous of me to dictate that.
Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.