Six-Word Memoirs.....

Ever since my six-word memoir got published, I have found myself creating them in my mind all the time. I rarely write them down, but if you ever see me walking around muttering and counting on my fingers, that is PROBABLY what I'm doing. Maybe I'll compile an entire book of them and see if anyone buys THAT.

**Crickets**

**Crickets**

Maybe not.

Anyway.

Here are a few of my latest creations. I wrote these down today as a reluctant alternative to rendering several teenagers incapable of human reproduction. I apologize for the restraint.

• Riding twenty years. Finally, a cyclist.

• I don't "please wait" very well.

• I may have said that before. 

•  Made that up on the fly.

•  Hardest part of laundry? "Remove promptly."

Sometimes an Obsession....

....can turn into a good thing. Not often, and not a SPLENDIFOROUS thing, but something to take the sting out of a Monday on which the temperature in my car read 17 degrees and I had to return to school after a two-week break.

Last year I came across the book Not Quite What I was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs written by the famous and the obscure. In typical fashion, I read as many of the memoirs aloud as Hubby would sit still for, shared the book with my niece, and began harassing everyone in earshot as to what THEIR six-word memoirs would be. I even blogged about it. Oddly, many people I tried to pin down for their memoirs had the very same one: "I. Don't. Have. Time. For. This."

I visited the SMITH Magazine website and submitted a six-word memoir, along with about a bazillion other people.

A few months later I got an email saying that my memoir had been "selected as a finalist for publication in the next book" and asking for my contact information. I was naturally skeptical and cynical, but since it only asked for my mailing address and not my bank account number, PIN, credit card number, social security number, birth date, blood type, height and weight, or astrological sign, I shrugged and went ahead and entered it.

I had forgotten all about it. Then a couple of weeks ago I got an email saying it was being published, and I could expect to receive my contributor's copy in the mail.

I was still skeptical.

Until today.

The latest book is It All Changed in an Instant. My hand is in the picture for two reasons: To prove that I actually HAVE the book, when I could have copied the image from their website. And I couldn't get it to stay flat on the table while I took the picture.


There, on page 53, just above my index finger, is my six-word memoir.


Just like the first book, some of the memoirs are hilarious, and some are so poignant that I got choked up just trying to read them to Hubby. Most of them I read and thought, "Damn, that is so much better than mine. Why couldn't I have thought of that?"

Please go buy a copy of this book. Not because it will benefit me financially in any way, because the contributor's copy of the book is (apparently) my only compensation. Buy it because reading these memoirs will uplift you and make you think.

Or, even better.....

Submit your own six-word memoir in the comment section of this blog post, and the writer of the best one will receive a free copy of the book. I'll give you some time to think about it -- deadline is midnight Eastern time, this Friday, January 8th. Hubby will serve as judge. He's the only judge I can afford. For those of you who know Hubby (both of you), I will keep your identities secret.

I just have one question......

Can I put this on my resume?

My Six-Word Memoir.....

I heard about the concept of Six-Word Memoirs and became fascinated by the book Not Quite What I Was Planning. Some people attribute the fad to a contemporary folk story that Earnest Hemingway was challenged to write a short story in only six words (or as few words as possible, according to the source). His response: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

While neither has it been established that the challenge actually occurred OR that Hemingway wrote those words, the concept is an interesting one. The book Not Quite What I Was Planning has a wonderful mix of memoirs, from the poignant to the hilarious.

Here's mine:

I don't "please wait" very well.