You may find that the minute you are asked to write about a significant experience, the very incident will flash to mind. Most writers, though, will need a little time for their memories to surface. Often, when you are busy doing something else — observing the scene around you, talking with someone, reading about someone else’s experience — the activity can trigger a recollection. When a promising one emerges, write it down. Perhaps, like Russell Baker, you found success when you ignored what you thought you were supposed to do in favor of what you really wanted to do. Perhaps, like Robert Schreiner, you learned from a painful experience.

Try Brainstorming. When you brainstorm, you just jot down as many ideas as you can. You can start with a suggestive idea — disobedience, painful lesson, childhood, peer pressure — and list whatever occurs through free association. You can also use the questions in the following checklist:

Try Freewriting. Devote ten minutes to freewriting — simply writing without stopping. If you get stuck, write “I have nothing to say” over and over, until ideas come. They will come. After you finish, you can circle or draw lines between related items, considering what main idea connects events.

Try Doodling or Sketching. As you recall an experience such as breaking your arm during a soccer tournament, try sketching whatever helps you recollect the event and its significance. Turn doodles into words by adding comments on main events, notable details, and their impact on you.

Try Mapping Your Recollections. Identify a specific time period such as your birthday last year, the week when you decided to enroll in college, or a time when you changed in some way. On a blank page, on movable sticky notes, or in a computer file, record all the details you can recall about that time — people, statements, events, locations, and related physical descriptions.

Try a Reporter’s Questions. Once you recall an experience you want to write about, ask “the five W’s and an H” that journalists find useful.

Any question might lead to further questions — and to further discovery.

Consider Sources of Support. Because your memory both retains and drops details, you may want to check your recollections of an experience. Did you keep a journal at the time? Do your memories match those of a friend or relative who was there? Was the experience (big game, new home, birth of a child) a turning point that you or your family would have photographed? Was it sufficiently public (such as a community catastrophe) or universal (such as a campus event) to have been recorded in a newspaper? If so, these resources can remind you of forgotten details or angles.