Autobiographical meditation

Here's a spiritual writing process from Thomas Merton.

1. Take an event that happened in your life.
2. Meditate on the event.
3. Use a journaling session as a meditation into the deeper significance of the event.
4. Rewrite the journal meditation in a more formal way for publication.

According to Lawrence S. Cunningham, the final pieces Merton published that followed this process were almost like prayers in response to events that had happened in the past.

Reference

Cunningham, Lawrence S. Thomas Merton: The Writing Life and the Contemplative Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get-B1lwip8. University of Chicago.

Avisos

Write a dense aphoristic sayings. These sayings could be written in small papers and handed out to various people to help them reflect. Later, these sayings could be collected into a book. This was a form of writing practiced by St. John of the Cross, and a collection of his sayings became "The Sayings of Light and Love."

Alternatively, the sayings could be used as starters for extended meditations. These meditations could be collected together into a book. This was what happened with Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude (1956) and New Seeds of Contemplation (1961).

Reference

Cunningham, Lawrence S. Thomas Merton: The Writing Life and the Contemplative Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get-B1lwip8. University of Chicago.