Do most writers write from experience or just random thoughts?

Maybe a bit weird I'm responding to something you posted last year. However, I must say that I write from experience. Not all of my poems are completely reflective of things that have happened to me but most of them do have elements of truth.

All of my work is from personal experience, but how truthful it is is another ball game altogether (:

I started off writing from my own experience and there was an element of catharsis in getting it out of my head and onto paper. Once I'd done that I moved on to writing more reflective pieces that hopefully looked at the outside world also - though I think it's normal perhaps to have your own experiences colour/inspire those reflections.