Orders lifted, may still stay home.*
Orders lifted, may still stay home.
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Extreme or micro flash: the six-word story. Paring down a story to six words seems impossible. Ostensibly (and dubiously), Hemingway did it: “For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” It’s just as much the space between the words — what isn’t said — that makes it work.
*First appeared in Six-Word Memoirs®, sixwordmemoirs.com.
Barbara BucklesArtist, writer, storyteller, spy. Okay, not a spy…I was just going for the rhythm.
I call myself “an inveterate dabbler.” (And my husband calls me “an invertebrate babbler.”) I just love to create one way or another. My latest passion is telling true stories live, on stage. Because it scares the hell out of me.
As a memoirist, I focus on the undercurrents. Drawing from memory, diaries, notes, letters and photographs, I never ever lie, but I do claim creative license when fleshing out actual events in order to enhance the literary quality, i.e., what I might have been wearing, what might have been on the table, what season it might have been. By virtue of its genre, memoir also adds a patina of introspection and insight that most probably did not exist in real time.
Characterizations:
well written
LOVE your photo….partially hidden, just your topknot, gives an aura of mystery, not complete. (I’ve now written more than you.) I remember Hemingway’s words. Thanks for adding to the genre. I understand the sentiment. We don’t have our second shots yet, but even after we have full immunity, we will evaluate each situation carefully, though I suspect we will venture further than our own home.
Stay safe, do what you need to feel comfortable, dear Barb.
Love your comment re the photo, Betsy! Thankfully it’s looking more and more like we’ll be back to normal before too much longer…I can feel it in the air. I wonder if we’ll still find ourselves wearing masks from time to time, if that might become an option depending on where we’re going, who we’ll be with. I do know neither my husband nor I have had so much as a sniffle since we started wearing them.
Brava Bebe – in just six words!
Thanks, Dee!
Wit is the sole of brevity!
Or something like that?! Thanks, Michael!
Yes, yes, yes! Barb, this perfectly encapsulates my own feelings and those of so many others. It’s going to be a while before many of us re-enter the “normal” or quasi-normal world again. Brilliant story!
Thanks so much, Mare…we’ll get there!
Barb, this is brilliant. You have captured what so many of us feel in just 6 words. Brava!
Thank you, Laurie!!
Wow, you’ve said it all in six words! Love the sentiment, love the picture! Still hope to get together with you before too long.
Well, not sure if I said it all, but yes, a big part of it, mostly in-between the words. Glad you like the goofy pic…and yes, chances are good we’ll be seeing each other again before too much longer, my friend!
Also love the picture. COVID 19. Interrupted all life.
Exactly…perfect!
I’ll echo Michael’s words. The saying is “brevity is the soul of wit”, of course, but too often, it seems “brevity is the soul of ‘what?'” Yours is clearly the former
Thanks, Tom! Your latter twist makes me cock my head to the side.
Oh yeah. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Oh yeah. You’ve got this.
🙂
Glasses sliding. Don’t lose. Reading important.
Oops, there they go…got em!