Six Word Memoirs

Have you heard of Smith? It's is an online storytelling community. I can tell it's going to be a huge time-sink. Excellent.

Smith offers writers and storytellers a place to, well, write and tell stories.

For one exercise, Smith assigns writers to compose their memoir in six words. Six words! This idea germinated from the legend that Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a story using only six words. He wrote, "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."

Some of the six-word memoirs on Smith are funny, even hilarious:

"Slightly psychotic, in a good way."

"Six sisters. So you can imagine."

"God, I am such an idiot."

Others take your breath away with horror or sadness:

"I found my mother's suicide note."

"I'd never heard of autism before."

"Womb betrayed me, stilled my baby."

And many of them make you want to know the rest of the story, like this one: "One time, an emu bit me."

Here are my own six-word memoirs, so far:

After depression, sun is out. Grateful.

Three kids; time not my own.

Not six words; just one: Love.

If I’m not, no one is.

Grateful: Jesus, Kevin, kids, friends; life.

Bad mom says wait for commercial.

Jesus loves me; this I know.

Irreverently loving God; imperfectly loving you.

If I didn't laugh, I'd cry.

Please forgive me. I was wrong.

So much television, so little time.

This is a fun way to spend six minutes or six hours. Try it--I'd love to hear your six-word memoir.

(Hat tip to Zzilda for pointing me to this way cool website.)