Once again, I’ve had an Aha moment that most of you probably had years ago. I swear, I’m always a beat behind the band trying to find my baton.

Anyway, my good friend, Nancy, recently gave me a newspaper clipping titled Write Your Memoir in Six Words. Shoot and double shoot! After all these years of pecking out storylines with word count goals in the 70,000 – 100,000 range and here I could have done it all with six measly words. Good heavens, it’s a wonder I’ve lived as long as I have without vital information like this.

The article states that the six-word memoir thing (yes, the word thing is used) started with Hemmingway. I immediately & rhetorically asked myself, “Who am I to upstage Hemmingway with even one more trifling extra word?”

Larry Smith, a writer, founded an online magazine. I need to bone up on links again, but until then you can find him at www.smithmag.net. It’s an amazing site where one of the features is six-word memoirs. Some examples:

1. Stole wife, lost friends, now happy.
2. Couldn’t cope so I wrote songs.
3. Was father, boys died, still sad.
4. I was born some assembly required.
5. Not quite what I was planning.
6. People lie. Keep trying to believe.
7. White trash, tempered by wit, charm.

Oh, and Hemmingway’s six-word memoir when someone asked him for a six-word story – For sale: baby shoes, never worn. I don’t get it. Do you think there are Cliff Notes?

This whole six-word thingy got me to thinking how much easier school would have been if assignments had been six-word books. I wonder how Atlas Shrugged would have read, or War and Peace? Any suggestions? How about: When Atlas shrugged, Rhett said, “Damn.” Oops, I think I’ve got my stories confused there. Okay, how about War and Peace? Peace and Peace. A better world. Yeah. That works!

So, what would your six-word memoir say about you? Quite frankly, I would have to write a series with several volumes. :) But I might start out with: Wiser today than yesterday. There’s tomorrow.