The year I decided to take my love of stories to the next level and try my creativity as a writer, I was young and untried. Green enough to recognize that my lack of life experience posed a creative handicap to authenticity.
Armchair imagination and the enthusiasm acquired by reading is great, but nothing measures up to the lively edges acquired through direct hands-on knowledge.
A fierce craving for adventure had already led me to complete the Outward Bound course at age 17. That extreme test was designed to challenge and surpass the boundaries of self‑imposed limitation. The arduous twenty-eight days profoundly changed my life course and perspective. We don’t truly know our human capabilities, or grasp the scope of our innate resiliency, until we are pushed and tried beyond the threshold of our perceived range of endurance.
It’s one thing to contemplate shooting a rapids on a wild river in a kayak, or to rappel two hundred and fifty feet down a sheer cliff above Lake Superior, or to orienteer a roadless tract of forest with nothing but a map and compass.
Altogether another to portage a canoe and a seventy-five-point supply pack through stinging nests of wild bees, over rocks and swamps and difficult terrain. Imagination alone cannot extrapolate, or even begin to contemplate, such physical hardship.
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Photo Credit: Andy Holmes / UnsplashIn today’s technically dependent lifestyle, the concept of no phone, no GPS, no radio—of going without connectivity—is almost inconceivable. Yet many fantasy works are written and told in worlds imagined with this premise.
One thing to dream what it might be like, and quite another to conquer the uncertainties inherent in a situation that demands self‑reliance: where no one will rescue you from your mistakes, when the consequence of screwing up your part of the picture could impact health or survival—not just your own, but that of the party at the end of a belay rope who is totally dependent on your performance.
The stresses that arise when interpersonal tensions, and vivid fear, and individual shortfalls play against the external setbacks of weather and uncertainty, gain an added edge, not always in line with logical conjecture.
Writers can push the envelope we know, and can aim for a unique position of carrying us beyond ourselves. We come back exhilarated, refreshed, reenergized and maybe, inspired to a higher bar by empathy with situations we might not wish to pursue in the real world.
It’s my feeling that if a story is to become the genuine gift of experience offered to enrich someone else, the importance and the gravity of delivering the best impact that I could on the written page a fair trade, since the reader offers us, as authors, the irreplaceable grant of their time. The honest obligation to honor that partnership has extended my effort to make every single story worth that unspoken investment of trust.
Horses, and a wide variety of equine pursuit, were already under my belt. I’d competed, evented, jumped extreme obstacles, camped and traveled on horseback in north country wilderness, and trained young horses in my spare time. Other sporting activities – archery, boating, racing under sail, rock climbing and dog training – every one of those hobbies pursued for pleasure was going to have to be taken further, pushed into more extreme territory.
The kind of stories I wanted to tell, and where I found deficiencies, defined the opportunities I sought. Books and research are fine, but where knowledge exists in any arena, somebody’s already an expert. Experience begins where the action is, and travel is often prerequisite.
Photo Credit: Huper by Joshua Earle / UnsplashThe Cycle of Fire trilogy included a backdrop of sailing and fishing for livelihood.
Small yachts take on crew for offshore passages at specific port towns and times of the year. At those departure points, skippers post their openings for sail hands. A course in offshore navigation—map and compass and sextant—and a ham radio license, added to basic experience under sail, got me my first offshore berths. Runs from Bermuda and the Caribbean led to the chance to crew on a period-rigged topsail schooner.
Such blue-water mileage quickly exposed me to the thrill and the wonder of seeing our planet from an oceangoing perspective. The raw forces of wind and water become magnified, reliant on a small vessel offshore, where days pass without sighting anything but marine birds, dolphins, and flying fish. The stars and the Milky Way, each sunset and sunrise, and the moon’s reflection on night water are more vivid; and humdrum worries like rent, car maintenance and taxes diminish to insignificance.
Nothing compares with a trip out with Maine fishermen, pulling nets in a wooden dory, with the live catch knee deep on the floorboards. Not to mention the odd detail: that strangers’ cats will be sniffing your sneakers with interest forever afterwards.
Adding primitive survival skills on land through wilderness backpacking in deserts and mountains, and world travel on a shoestring to exotic destinations have illuminated so many facets I’d never have thought of on my own.
I could never have written Master of Whitestorm, or Korendir’s travels as a mercenary, without breaking out of familiar settings and rubbing elbows with other cultures, other continents. Education and travel are two things in life that nothing can take away.
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I hope more than a smidgeon of that wonder and excitement has rubbed off on the pages under my byline, and that the odd spark of inspiration can be passed along and paid forward.
Meantime, the next book, the next article, the next chat with an interesting stranger or letter from a reader, may surely lead me over yet another, untried horizon.
Take an adventure with Janny Wurts today!
Janny Wurts is an author and artist who has published nineteen novels, a collection of short fiction nominated for the British Fantasy Award, and numerous science fiction and fantasy short stories. For more from Janny, join her Reddit AMA on r/fantasy, 5/25/21.
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