MySixWriMo Day 1

Today marks the official start of MySixWriMo, an entirely unsubsidized, unauthorized event that I made up on a whim. MySixWriMo invites participants to write a 6 sentence story based on a daily prompt. Six Sentence stories are inspired by the form created by Rob McEvily at his blogzine, Six Sentences.

We'll use prompts provided by Robert Brewer, who hosts the April Poem a Day month event at his blog, Poetic Asides. (Poem a Day is an event sponsored by Writer's Digest.) In addition, I may also post another prompt from The Writer's Book of Matches, published by Writer's Digest Books.

You may email your finished 6s to me or post them in the comments section here if you want to be held accountable, but sharing isn't required. This is strictly for fun.

Today's prompt from Robert Brewer at Poetic Asides:

For today's prompt, I want you to write an origin poem. It can be the origin of a word, person, plant, idea, etc. Have fun with it.

And the prompt taken from The Writer's Book of Matches:

"She checked out last night."

I'll be back later to share my own 6 sentence interpretation. Good luck, everyone!

MySixWriMo

*****

I’m a sucker for NaNoWriMo. It’s how I brought Folly into the world. If I had it in me (and knew my husband wouldn’t divorce me), I’d do NaNoWriMo every month. So when I heard that Writer’s Digest was doing their April Poem a Day (PAD) marathon again, I felt the creative fires start to stir. I love a trumpet call to recklessly create. Just thinking of it made the words flow juicy in my mouth.

Then I remembered: I’m no poet.

Creative chick that I am, it occurred to me that I do write in a form that bears some resemblance to poetry. Yes, you know what I mean. The mighty Six.

Sixes are these amazing little micro stories, dense with image and metaphor and emotion. They’re the brain child of writing pioneer, Robert McEvily. Rob is a creative thinker and a true friend to struggling writers. You have something to say? Rob wants to hear it.

But in my opinion, the Six form itself is Rob’s greatest contribution. The form of the Six is so tight, the content can't help but burst free. The story lives outside and between the sentences. Sixes knit themselves together in the reader’s mind. The more understated, the better, just like haiku. To write a good Six, you need to invoke feelings and pictures. If you write a great one, it will read like a poem.

So, my challenge for April: to visit Robert Brewer’s PAD blog and use his prompt to write a Six every day. Out of the thirty, there’s bound to be some winners. I’ll post those worthy of public consumption here for you to enjoy/mock/tear to shreds.

One last bit of business: all journeys are more fun when shared. If you want to MySixWriMo with me, give a holler. I'd love to have the company.