In the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He wrote: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." He won the bet.
Smith, the American online magazine, invited their readers to write their life story in just six words, and the BBC's Today programme (Radio 4) has challenged its listeners to do the same. For the full list, go to Today's website (scroll down the right hand side for the link) but below are few of my favourites.
Try it. It's not easy. You don't have to write your entire autobiography - go back to Hemingway's example and create a complete, but short, story.
Dick Hadfield: Foetus, son, brother, husband, father, vegetable.
Neil Feldman: Bantam, Anglia, Midget, Alfa, Volvo Estate.
Clare Hobba: Unravelled career reknitted as baby blankets.
Heather Thomson: Head in books, feet in flowers.
Richard Merrington: Wasted my whole life getting comfortable.
Patric: Born London, lived elsewhere, died inside.
Robin Pickering: If only I had turned left.
Gillian Smellie: Ditched the map, found better route.
Showing posts with label Today. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Today. Show all posts
Odd but wildly inspirational
After the excitement over wild book titles the other morning, Today got Alexander McCall Smith to judge entries for their first few paras of these titles.
A couple of tantalising first few words from Martin Johns, for 'The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification':
Tricia stopped, holding me back by my jacket. Turning, her gaze fixed me. Her eyes were the azure of mountain lakes. Overhead the rain started to pour again.
'It's a Walmart 379 Z, with Mk 1 wheels', she said coldly....
Peter Kay saw 'Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence' as a recently-discovered fragment of 16th century manuscript, unambiguously signed in biro "William Shakespeare"
ACT 1, SCENE 1
The streets of London (© McTell, all rights reserved). Night, rain (© Lennon/McCartney... no, that's enough of those. Get on with it). Enter an environmentalist, weeping......
Pamela Morley was runner up, but the winner was Tim Sanders, whose entry begins thus:
How Green Were The Nazis?
The sound of creaking leather from their collective greatcoats broke the silence as the assembled Wehrmacht officers leaned forward to examine the huge table map of the Spreewald, the vast forest area standing between the XI SS Panzer Corps and the Red Army. The problem was clear - vast stretches of gorse in the forest (ulex europeus) were in flower and it was the nesting season of the rare inversely-spotted bark-spitter.....
For the rest of these luscious entries, go to the Today website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ and click on the odd book titles. Bliss.
A couple of tantalising first few words from Martin Johns, for 'The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification':
Tricia stopped, holding me back by my jacket. Turning, her gaze fixed me. Her eyes were the azure of mountain lakes. Overhead the rain started to pour again.
'It's a Walmart 379 Z, with Mk 1 wheels', she said coldly....
Peter Kay saw 'Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence' as a recently-discovered fragment of 16th century manuscript, unambiguously signed in biro "William Shakespeare"
ACT 1, SCENE 1
The streets of London (© McTell, all rights reserved). Night, rain (© Lennon/McCartney... no, that's enough of those. Get on with it). Enter an environmentalist, weeping......
Pamela Morley was runner up, but the winner was Tim Sanders, whose entry begins thus:
How Green Were The Nazis?
The sound of creaking leather from their collective greatcoats broke the silence as the assembled Wehrmacht officers leaned forward to examine the huge table map of the Spreewald, the vast forest area standing between the XI SS Panzer Corps and the Red Army. The problem was clear - vast stretches of gorse in the forest (ulex europeus) were in flower and it was the nesting season of the rare inversely-spotted bark-spitter.....
For the rest of these luscious entries, go to the Today website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ and click on the odd book titles. Bliss.
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