I’ve been dabbling with a couple of short-form writing projects lately. It started with Twitter, where you are limited to 140 characters per “tweet.” I found the practice of writing things more concisely, while maintaining clarity, a useful discipline. Let’s face it; most of us use way too many words to say very little.
Here is an excerpt of an article describing it:
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.
The book is full of well-known names:
writer Dave Eggers (Fifteen years since last professional haircut)
singer Aimee Mann (Couldn't cope so I wrote songs)
comedian Stephen Colbert (Well, I thought it was funny)
Here is my first attempt at my own six word memoir:
Ironically uncomfortable with a comfortable life
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