Life Into Literature

What goes from your life into your writing? What advice do you give to students, if any, about using life in fiction, or in poems, or essays, or screenplays?  I am fascinated by people's work, and am glad to live in an era when those not of the leisure class find time to write about work.   I have students make a list of jobs as a source for inspiration. Here they get to share a unique world with readers.  After one of my students wrote a story about working making donut, and I found out how donuts are made--basically fried floating in hot grease--I gave up donuts. An idependent study graduate student has been writing a story that involves work in an old fashioned candy factory. Finding out how candy used to be made, and is still made, makes the story in part interesting. I enjoy reading about the processing of doing things in a story that has characters who spend time at work.