Pbenjay's Blog

Bringing back an old friend today.  Been so long since we did Six-Word Memoir Monday, I thought, ‘well why not try again?’

For those of you who have forgotten or are new to my blog, let me give you  a little background on this project.  My Six-Word Memoir Monday is my way of unofficially participating in the Smith Magazine project.  I am going to post an article from their web site which describes the idea and origin of the project:  “…We quickly popped in a new idea we had been kicking around: giving Hemingway‘s legendary six-word novel (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”) a personal twist. We combined the classic storytelling challenge with our passion for nonfiction confessionals and dubbed it “Six-Word Memoirs.” Then we called up some guys we met at a tech conference about this new thing called Twitter and asked if they wanted to partner up to send one daily short life story to anyone who followed our @smithmag feed.   Four years and more than 200,000 Six-Word Memoirs later, we continue to be blown away by what people are capable of saying in just six words, the ways that others have adapted the form, and — not to get all Chicken Soup-y here — the unexpected little gems and gifts that launching this project has brought into our lives.   In classrooms from kindergarten to graduate school, educators have found the Six-Word Memoir an inspiring writing lesson. From a third-grade classroom in New Jersey, we heard “Life is better in soft pajamas” and one student’s precocious Zen observation: “Tried surfing on a calm day.” In Charleston, South Carolina, a creative writing teacher named Junius Wright makes a series of Six-Word Memoir videos with his students each year.”

There is a lot more about this project that you can read about on their website; Just google SMITH magazine.  Articles extolling the fun, creativity and virtue of this ongoing project have appeared in the New York Times and New Yorker magazine. The idea and concept has grown and expanded into many forms such as the third-grade teacher in New Jersey and in college classes across the country.

That’s the gist of it, let’s give it a go!  Remember it’s Six Words, No More, No Less!

“Missed the meeting, late to office”

“Rain Saturday, Sun Monday, Not Fair”

“My get-up-and-go, went”

“Lazy Sunday morning slid to Monday”

“Monday is a four-letter word”

Well there you have some examples of just what I’m talking about – and this time I made MONDAY the theme.  I would  love to see some entries from my readers.  So easy, just put your thoughts, inspirations, cares, sorrows, loves into six words.  Distilling our story into just six words, no more, no less.  The subject matter is up to you – my theme was Monday, what’s yours?

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