No offense, but are you really a “successful” writer? I consider a successful writer one who makes a living writing with critical and commercial success.
As to the OP, IMHO there are two “schools” of writers relevant to this thread:
Those who led very basic “uninteresting” lives (Austen, Walden, Dickinson, etc.) but had wonderful imaginations;
Those who led incredible lives and wrote all about it (Hemingway, Marlowe, London, etc.).
The list of writers who loead uninteresting lives would far exceed the ones who did.
I agree with those saying that good writers can be inspired by either a very creative imagination or interesting life experiences, if not both.
Sometimes I think being overly convinced of how interesting your life story is can be a stumbling block that leads to excessive navel-gazing. Nobody wants to read that.
Stephen King calls it the “what-if” factor. A writer sees some mundane thing and thinks “What if…?” King once saw saw an old abandoned Buick behind a gas station and that was the start of “From a Buick 8.”
Most of my favorite authors - Tom Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, J.G. Ballard, Kurt Vonnegut, and R. Crumb (who I do consider a genuine writer, not just a “cartoonist”) - have led lives that were not only interesting but at some points downright nightmarish; and at other points, full of excitement and optimism. On the other hand, I find Stephen King’s writing to be a ponderous bore. I think certainly in my case, I prefer the work of writers who have led “interesting” lives.
Perhaps the trick is being able to see that your own life is interesting.
I don’t think you have to lead an interesting life yourself to be a good writer. I think you have to be *interested *in other people, curious, and observant, and let your imagination fly free building on what you’ve seen and thought.
But that definition, no.
But by having a novel and over 40 short stories published in pro SF magazines and anthologies, along with good critical reviews and a couple of awards (one pretty minor, I admit), plus earning over $10,000 just from the sale of my stories over the years, I’d say I’ve had more success from writing than 95% of writers out there.
Well, we can take Dickinson and Melville off the list, then.
Don’t forget either that when writer’s were being admonished to “write from your own experience,” experience was a much narrower prism. Your experiences include every book, paper, magazine or even poster that you have seen or read; every movie, TV show, radio show or play you have seen or heard; all the music you have listened to, the conversations you have had, why even the threads you have posted to on message boards. They are all about life and you now contain all that you learned from each experience.
Sounds successful to me. * Definitely* more successful than leander…