During a more or less accidental re-reading of Hamlet as an adult (I was in an environment where there wasn't much else to do) I had a powerful sense that Shakespeare was revealing his identity, along with a good deal of the emotional impetus behind his writing, through the story line of the play.  When this idea refused to dislodge itself, I wrote it down.

It still seemed reasonable on paper, but I discounted it because I was just a layman;  it couldn't have any serious merit unless it passed the scrutiny of a genuinely qualified expert.  I needed the opinion of, say, a Shakespeare scholar at a major university.

Having identified what I required, I was able to find it in just two phone calls. 

The first was to the secretary of a college English department, who was able to recommend a "user friendly" Shakespeare expert.  The second was to the professor himself.

To my great relief, the professor told me that my idea wasn't just some old chestnut that had been around forever.  He found it original, even interesting, and indicated that he would be willing to look over what I had written.

Later, after reading it, he told me in a letter that my idea was not only original as far as he knew, but also highly plausible.  He also added some supporting scholarly detail of a kind that I would never have known where to begin looking for, on my own.

I came away from the experience more than a little surprised at how it had been possible for a layman, centuries after this classic tragedy had been written, to discern a voice that may have been the real Shakespeare's, telling how and why his plays had been written. 

There was tremendous satisfaction in finding that my own small, isolated view could have a legitimate place in the larger scheme of things.