{"id":8470,"date":"2011-12-17T05:00:57","date_gmt":"2011-12-17T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=8470"},"modified":"2011-12-17T05:00:57","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T13:00:57","slug":"only-six-not-less-not-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/8470","title":{"rendered":"Only six, not less, not more."},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tGiven my gift for gab, it might surprise you to know that perfecting a profoundly pared-down paragraph excites me.\u00a0And I still haven\u2019t figured out how to …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

… text yet. Shaved sentences, deft deletions, eloquent edits\u2014love \u2018em! Words are wondrous, phenomenal, prodigious, miraculous, splendid, smashing, dazzling, jim-dandy, super-duper, ripping, tip-top. I could go on and on (really?), but there is also beauty in brevity. And so, without further ado, I come to my point:<\/p>\n

Six-word stories tickle my fancy. (Did you catch the six count?)<\/p>\n

That’s my confession for the day. (Another six.) Have you heard of this concept? (Six, again.) The six-word story isn’t really a new idea, but it is something of a fad these days. In an era of status updates and tweets, we’re becoming increasingly comfortable with speaking our minds in fewer lines.<\/p>\n

Idaho\u2019s very own wordsmith, Ernest Hemingway, as it turns out, would be proud. It is rumored that Hemingway was once dared to create a story in six words. He wrote, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”<\/p>\n

Food for thought? In six words, Hemingway spurred countless imaginative journeys, leading readers and scholars to ponder the possibilities of full-fledged stories submerged beneath the snippet.<\/p>\n

Finding great depths of inspiration within Hemingway’s groundbreaking \u201cgenre,\u201d editor Larry Smith<\/a>\u00a0 founded the \u201cSix-Word Memoir\u201d project as a satellite of his online storytelling site, SMITH Magazine<\/a>. In 2006, Smith announced a contest: submit your life story in six words. The flood of responses, ranging from hilarious to heartbreaking, was pared down to a collection of the most mesmerizing (including Smith’s own story, \u201cBig hair, big heart, big hurry\u201d). A craze of concision was born, and a book became, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure<\/a>, <\/em>soon led to subsequent books, a calendar<\/a>, t-shirts, and even a card game<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I’m not the only one who can be wooed in six words. This concept is catchy. Are you feeling<\/em> it yet? You can go to the Six-Word Memoir <\/a>site, sign up, and\u2014presto!\u2014publish your own six-word story in the category of your choice (Life, Love, Moms, Teens, Work, etcetera). The secret is to make it personal without trying too hard. It’s amazing how much we can learn about each other in so few words.<\/p>\n

Reached into my heart to fly!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Do share if\u2019n six grabs you.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given my gift for gab, it might surprise you to know that perfecting a profoundly pared-down paragraph excites me.\u00a0And I still haven\u2019t figured out how to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gift_for_gab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}