Writing Memoir? Here's my Writing Practice to Unlock Personal Stories
It started with a text from my brother on the group chat we have with our mom. (I still keep the one including my dad pinned to the top of my app, which means I sometimes miss these ones).
“I remember Dad stopping by a field and grabbing some ears of corn.”
My dad grew up on a farm, and even though he was a man of good morals, he would never let his morals get in the way of some good, fresh corn.
I’m currently working on a creative non-fiction, Yelling at Dead People, that explore my relationship with complicated grief, and this—the stealing of corn—feels like a good fit.
This post isn’t about how I finished writing that essay. It’s about how I got myself to begin.
Step One: Let the Idea Roll Around
When I decide to write an essay on a specific topic, the first thing I do is sit with it. Let it roll through the grooves of my brain, generally while I’m washing dishes, on a bike ride, or hanging my clothes on the line. It’s not entirely purposeful. I don’t always say to myself, “Today I will bike towards Hastings and only turn around once I have worked out my plot.” But then again, sometimes I do.
For the past few days, I’ve just naturally come back to this idea of corn and my dad and the fields I grew up in. This morning, in my writing group, I decided to take more concrete action.
Step Two: Make a List of What You Remember
I wrote a list of all my memories involving corn. Sometimes I do this as a list; sometimes I freewrite, stream-of-consciousness style. This morning was a bit of a mix.
Here are some of the things I came up with:
I corn detasseled for about four summers starting the summer between Grade 8 and Grade 9.
Rain used to love corn on the cob so much that his uncle called him Corn-Dog.
It is exceptionally rare to find anyone who actually knows what corn detasseling means (it is NOT picking corn).
My grandpa used to tell me to wear wool socks and long sleeves in the fields to stay cool.
At 13 years old, I’d come home from a 10-hour day of corn detasseling and cry and beg my dad to let me quit. He didn’t.
Rain could often be found in backyards with either a cob of corn or a rib—or both—in his hand.
I never actually watched Children of the Corn but I’d heard of it and my imagination was enough. I remember my cousins and I running through corn fields screaming
Throughout high school, my friends and I would often go on a crop tour with a case of beer in the trunk.
Remember the neighbourhood ribfests? Was there always corn on the cob? I think so.
My dad taught me corn on the cob should only ever be eaten if it was picked fresh that morning.
When I was about five, our yard backed onto a cow pasture, and I would holler to the cows, “Here, bossy bossy bossy,” and pass them my corn cobs when I was finished eating.
They are not in any particular order, and they don’t even all make sense. That’s okay. They have made it to my paper, which means that I now have something physical to work with.
Step Three: Add Details and Context
The next thing I’ll do is expand. I’ll add details and context. I might mention how the beer we would drink on crop tours was often hot as piss, and we’d have to hold our thumbs over the bottle when the driver took the railroad tracks too hard. I might describe how I would wear a green plastic garbage bag upside down with holes for my head and arms down the first row of corn in the morning. This would keep me dry from the dew that had settled on the leaves overnight. Or maybe I’ll share how, through my adult years, I’d often try to impress my dad with corn I had bought at the markets, wondering if any would take him back to the corn from his childhood and the ears he would steal from the fields.
Step Four: Be Willing to Write More Than You’ll Use
The key is that you must be willing to write a lot to end up with a little.
I might write a page or two about every one of my points and later decide that this essay will be only about my dad and detasseling. That’s okay. The other writing isn’t a loss. It’s still good. And maybe I’ll use it later, so I tuck it away in a folder called Extras.
Step Five: Do a Bit of Research
Writing a story, fiction or nonfiction, generally requires research. I’ll ask Google to remind me of the logistics around planting corn in blocks of three; it has something to do with pollination. I might text my mom and ask if we ever grew corn in our giant garden in the yard that backed onto the cow pasture. I’ll ask Rain to tell me about his best corn memory over dinner.
These details will not only make my essay more meaningful but also help the readers step into the memories with me. And if I can’t remember if the garbage bag I wore over my clothes in the cornfields back in 1989 was green or black (both were used at that time), I can simply choose the colour that feels right. (Trust me, nobody will call you out!)
Step Six: A Draft Is Just the Beginning
I know of no shortcut to this. Every once in a while, I’ll sit down and write a piece almost completely from start to finish, but that is incredibly rare! More often, what I’m doing is writing toward a rough draft—not a polished essay, but the bones of something with energy and shape.
I almost prefer it this way. I get to spend more time being curious and remembering and playing. I don’t know what parts will work until I’ve written them. It feels like magic. Magic I have to work for, but still—magic.
Once I have the points chosen and some details fleshed out, I’ll keep writing and rewriting. Taking words out and putting them back in. We would have been drinking Molson Canadian or Coors Light—unless I was with Jason, and then it was OV.
The Result: A Document of Possibility
Will I actually include an essay about corn? I have no idea. But now, I have a document of memories and ideas that are possible. And that’s the point—this isn’t about having a finished piece. It’s about getting unstuck. Finding momentum. Letting a tiny idea take up space on the page.
And most importantly—I had a brilliant time reminiscing about something as simple as a couple ears of corn.
Erica
P.S. Want to get better at noticing the details that bring your stories to life?
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Hi, I’m Erica!
I’m an author, public speaker, and writing mentor. I LOVE to talk about about writing, creativity, and the messiness of life that can make these things feel as unobtainable as they are critical to healing.
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