I’ve been thinking a lot about writing lately. Particularly my own.

Of all the stories I have written, and all the ones floating around my head waiting for me to write them, they have one thing in common: they came from the wild.

What does that mean?

I am inspired by my own experiences, my own interests. The stories I love best, my own and others, have some element of a wild landscape. Most often, the boreal shield landscape in which I feel at home.

One piece of advice often thrown at new writers is “write what you know.” In some ways, that’s easy. In others, it’s the hardest thing to ever write. Personal stories are always the ones most difficult to put on paper. Even then, there is a limit to what someone knows.

Other stories come from the wilds of my imagination (and trust me, it’s a scary place some times…). I make them up, taking elements out of wherever I happen to pull them.

I wrote a mystery/thriller novel a couple years ago. This story came entirely from a composite of things I watched on TV, in movies, and read in books. There’s truth to it, just not anything I’ve experienced first hand. It was a wild ride to write such a fast-paced novel. Fun, but wild.

Then there are the stories found within the pages of history. These are the most intriguing stories of those who came before. There are always elements of wild in historical documents, out of sheer wilderness or sense of place, through the customs used then, along with everything else that created that time period.

I’ve found that the best stories are true. So, whether historical, set in a wild landscape or pulled from the wilds of imagination, that’s what I consider stories from the wild. And that is what I write.