Sunday, February 24, 2008

Not Quite What I Was Planning (or Six-Word Memoirs: Life Stories Distilled)

I was procrastinating this morning from a particularly dreaded writing task and I stumbled upon this NPR story that was featured on Talk of the Nation on February 7, 2008.

Basically, an online memoir magazine, Smith, asked readers to write the story of their lives in a sentence or more accurately, six words (no more, no less) and they gathered some of the reponses into a book called Not Quite What I was Planning. Some of the examples include:

After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.

70 years, few tears, hairy ears.

The psychic said I'd be richer.

There are many more funny and touching examples both in the article and in the 12 minute excerpt from Talk of Nation. In addition, you can look at ones people submitted to Smith magazine and to NPR.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you? If you could write a story of your life (or lives) in six words, what would it be? Feel free to come up with as many versions as you want. Here are the two I came up with on short notice:

Stories, water, roadtrips, too little time.

Significant other, lost in the mail

Now, it's your turn (and time for me to get back to work).

5 comments:

julienj said...

Without taking the time for soul-searching (too serious, and too much time), here's mine:

Who knew: soccer mom and classics

holdenj said...

What a great thought! Can't take too much time with it, or it gets too hard.

Pollyanna had it right. Enjoy life.

holdenj said...

Just a couple more!

Missing a mom, being a mom.


Teens are payback, gotta love 'em!

Doc Jen said...

Great ones. Here's somemore I thought of this morning on the way too work.

Shut mouth, open ears, learn much.

Cynical mind, masked by Pollyana exterior.
(thanks JH for Pollyanna idea)

Doc Jen said...

Also,

Type too fast, make student mistakes.

:)