She’s a voracious reader of the New Yorker (I envy this). She recently told me about this story, “Say it all in six words.” Coincidentally, I heard about it over the weekend on NPR too.
Here is the description from NPR:
Once asked to write a full story in six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway responded: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."
In this spirit of simple yet profound brevity, the online magazine Smith asked readers to write the story of their own lives in a single sentence. The result is Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers, artists and musicians. Their stories are sometimes sad, often funny — and always concise.
Such a creative idea! I tried it. It’s not easy! I already want to change it. I think I’ll be like Micq and never fix myself to just one. Especially since this first one was "Not Quite What I was Planning."
wakeup in control, retire in vice
3 comments:
Indeed.
Never boring, but always bored. Never scary, but always scared. Never shy, but always vulnerable.
All this diametrically opposed bullshit is fatiguing for chrissake. Why do you think that white roller coaster is so rickety. It only stays running because the memories of screaming happy afraid children make it think it has to.
Can a roller coaster be co-dependent?
I'd really rather be the Wild Mouse. Where you careen toward the seeming end of the track and turn sharply at the last moment to find yourself back on the rails and ready for the next thrill. Hmmmmmmm. Since we are making human-ride comparisons, who does that sound like?!!
Amie pretty much has an all-day, all-area pass at life's amusement park. Still wanting to ride the Colossus three times in a row, still believing you can really get a penny on one of those plates at the arcade, still wanting to spit on people from the Sky Ride, still wanting the giant stuffed hello kitty plush, still just wandering, wondering and wide eyed. But, don't let her completely fool you. I've heard she still gets pretty scared in the Castle of Terror.
Anyway, thanks for writing about me, my love. In some way, it puts me back on the map. Sometimes I tend to think I've slipped off the edge. My friends and family are the only reason I ever find my way home.
Six words:
Conflict resolved, created, resolved, created, death.
PS: The New Yorker is what everyone should buy themselves for the 40th birthday.
I love you kitten.
I have wanted - and have tried several times - to capture my life story. Not for posterity or whatever but for me - when I'm old and forgetful.
I love the idea of capturing maybe not my entire life but perhaps chapters of my life in 6 words. I'd have to be horribly unoriginal though and steal the books title for the last few years of my life, "Not Quite What I Was Planning."
Thanks for sharing! SO thought provoking.
Oh, I like your six word "life sentence". I was in a creative writing class in college learning about the topic of "brevity". The professor read a "short story" written, maybe by someone famous, I just can't remember who wrote it. But I'll never forget the story. It's a little longer than 6 words.
"I told him not to learn the violin this summer while the air conditioning was broken," she said, as she put down the smoking gun.
I love that story. Just enough detail to get your mind really churning.
My six words: "I should not have eaten that."
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