Writing the Autobiography of Your Stuff

The detritus of our lives can serve as a cannon for fiction or nonfiction writing.

In my life, it’s three places: the little fireproof safe hidden in my bedroom, the stack of papers beside my printer, and inside my wallet. It’s bills I should have paid or maybe I already did, blank intake forms for new patients at work, research articles I read and never used for anything, expired car insurance documents, gift cards I’m holding on to for the perfect thing.

This detritus can serve as a cannon for fiction or nonfiction writing. So here goes:

1.) Go into your junk drawer, mail stack, folder of things you’ll get to later, etc. Select something that interests you visually. Some ideas: a nudge to renew a magazine subscription; a politicians’ flyer; an old university ID card; your child’s birth certificate. If it’s something you’ll need later, make a copy that you’ll then write on. If it’s something you won’t need, affix it to a piece of paper or poster board.

2.) Set a timer for twenty minutes. Interact with the document (don’t just write about it as an object, but rather allow it to have as many jumping off points as possible.) Argue with it. Footnote it. Underline it. Anything it reminds you of in time or space, you can write about that. I don’t believe in closing in with laser-focus on what I’m writing—so when I did this, I got up to get a book off the shelf and also Googled to find an old news article. Do you. Move around.

3.) Use what you have as a jumping-off point now for something else. Either try to merge two of your ideas in longer-form prose, or try this with another object and try to bridge the gaps between them. Have fun excavating the junk drawer of your mind.