Sunday, June 6, 2010

Six-Word Memoirs

Six-word memoirs are a way to tell your story, using exactly six words. I read a collection of them, It All Changed In an Instant recently and I was inspired. You see, I've been dealing with writer's block lately. These got me writing again. Smith Magazine  is a blog-a-zine that collects and shares these stories.

The first six-word story was actually written by Ernest Hemingway. He wrote it supposedly to settle a bet (knowing Hemingway, I'm sure there was some alcohol involved).  For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

His story is only six words, yet it speaks of hundreds more in what's not said. 

They're fun to do, yet it's hard to pinpoint the six most important words to tell your story.

Here are some of mine:


*I've moved thirty-one times. I'm twenty-six.

*Went to Australia. Missed college graduation.


*Brother's attempted suicide kept me awake.


*Mom could've had an abortion. Didn't.

*Books plus beaches equal peaceful spirit.

3 comments:

  1. I love these idea of these, although yours break my heart, a little. But it is a good exercise to think about, life condensed, intensely focused...

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  2. They shouldn't break your heart! They're my stories and they make me who I am (for better or worse!).

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  3. Hi,

    This is Alyssa from SMITH Mag, the creators of the Six-Word Memoir project. We've had more than 250,000 people submit Six-Word Memoirs at smithmag.net and smithteens.com, and we'd love it if your community & fans joined us over at SMITH.

    If you haven't already, you should submit your six-word memoirs (you can send more than one!) at smithmag.net/sixwords. Bonus: your six words could be in a future book; we've done five books of Six-Word Memoirs so far.

    Thanks,
    Alyssa, SMITH intern

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