Not Quite What I Was Planning

Description

Can a whole life fit in six words? Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway once bet he could write a novel in six words — ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Whether or not the story is true, it inspired one of the most delightful literary experiments of our time.

In 2006, the online storytelling magazine Smith asked readers to sum up their lives in exactly six words. The response was overwhelming: thousands of tiny memoirs, heartbreaking and hilarious, arrived from writers famous and obscure alike. Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser gathered the best of them in Not Quite What I Was Planning.

The result is a book unlike any other — hundreds of life stories distilled to their essence, capturing love and loss, ambition and regret, joy and absurdity in a single breath. Funny, moving, and endlessly quotable: the perfect book for dipping in and out of, and for inspiring your own six-word memoir.

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway once bet he could write a novel in six words — ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Whether or not the story is true, it inspired one of the most delightful literary experiments of our time.
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nIn 2006, the online storytelling magazine Smith asked readers to sum up their lives in exactly six words. The response was overwhelming: thousands of tiny memoirs, heartbreaking and hilarious, arrived from writers famous and obscure alike. Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser gathered the best of them in Not Quite What I Was Planning.
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nThe result is a book unlike any other — hundreds of life stories distilled to their essence. In six words each, contributors capture love and loss, ambition and regret, joy and absurdity: an entire human life in a single breath.
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nFunny, moving, and endlessly quotable, this is the perfect book for dipping in and out of — and for inspiring your own six-word memoir. A charming gift for writers, readers, and anyone who believes that sometimes the smallest stories say the most.