Do You Write Into the Lava?

E.T. creator Steven Spielberg started with a huge hole he felt when his parents divorced and came up with the what if that hole was filled with an extraterrestrial in E.T. The emotional state of longing is part of the backstory or does writing into the lava mean to use your somatic experience of a story event while writing a scene? "I just want to acknowledge Judith's super smart, super, super smart question"