Writing-for-Discovery Treasures

October 13, 2025

            Writing-for-discovery is a type of free-write where the writing hasn’t been outlined or otherwise planned out. It can be a great early step in the writing process since the physical act of putting down words helps our brains to make neurological connections. Suddenly we see or know something we hadn’t realized before. Conversely, the process can highlight something we don’t know that we need to find out before we can go on.

            It’s a delicious sensation to read something I’ve just written and think, “Yes! That’s exactly right, but I had no idea I thought that!” Writing-for-discovery isn’t finished, polished writing, but it’s a way to evoke (or capture) fleeting thoughts or memories before they recede into our subconscious again.

            Guided Memoir Writing makes ample use of the writing-for-discovery technique. The simple direction to describe the first house you remember can evoke a wealth of details from your early life that you didn’t even realize were there. As you walk further into your house, you may suddenly smell your favorite childhood dinner cooking or, in my case, hear the sounds of Lawrence Welk stream from the den.

Hearing that particular music made my head spin—while my mother would watch his show, my sisters and I would spin around and around to make our nightgowns billow out like ballgowns we saw on the screen. We’d get so dizzy we’d fall down in fits of laughter only to repeat ad nauseum for the full broadcast.

            I hadn’t thought about Lawrence Welk in years, but this memory made me smile. These are the memories that make up a life, they are the mundane details that stitch together most of our hours. Just because they are ordinary doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. They are the marrow of life.

            While the memory is valuable in itself, sometimes in the process of recording such snippets, we learn something at a deeper level too. I was an extremely shy child, and when I recall my childhood, sometimes all I remember is my social anxiety. It was a big piece of my growing up. But the Lawrence Welk memory reminds me that intertwined with all that anxiety, there was an innocent child, one who could laugh with abandon and who envisioned herself waltzing across a stage in an elegant (and gloriously swishy!) ballgown. That added depth makes the memory even more priceless, and one absolutely worth holding onto.