Brevity

February 8th, 2008

I hate starting a post with “so I was listening to NPR” but maybe that is a little better than starting it with “I hate starting a post with…” because that’s so disingenuous, and I really, really mean to become more ingenuous, ingenius? I cannot think, my husband is out of town and somebody wants to tell me something awful that his brother has done every ten seconds which means that I keep re-composing the same sentence in my head over and over again, only it’s worse every time. And I wonder if I should give up and try to write after they’re all in bed when my brain is officially melted, or what order things must logically happen in for this to be an ok evening, only there is no logic left because it’s a giant circle of things all needing to be done right now and…

Wait, that NPR story, was this one about this book, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Obscure and Famous, and by the time I finished hearing the story I knew mine.
Four kids later I’m still thinking.

In my usual long-winded style, I did start thinking about the gift it can be to have these constraints placed on us, to have to get to the gist and figure out the point. In case you missed it, I have a tendency to want to frame an idea, to give you context and not miss any of the social niceties that go along with it. It is worse when I am tired, and the awful thing is that when Raven is tired, he gets more direct, like, “what was the point of your telling me what you were doing when the phone rang and it was the insurance company and would you get to the point, woman?” Worse, I feel like it’s overcompensation — so many times I’ve seen connections and jumped ahead and left the person I was talking to confused and both of us frustrated so now I err on the side of too much context. But I find the more time I spend on Twitter, the more I have to make that point in 140 characters the better I get at figuring out what the point was.

So I suppose if I were a better self-editor I’d drop that first paragraph (and thus not need to write this one! How’s that for an editorial tautology? Am I digressing again?) but you need to see where I’m starting from.

Comments (5)

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Raven Zachary Says:
February 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Ha! I have never consciously referred to you as ‘woman.’ I assume that was just a silly paraphrasing of what I said a few days ago.

Wende Morgaine Says:
February 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Mara,

I *love* this post. I, too, am like that. I like to tell the whole story, including what shoes I was wearing and how that affected my mood and that I hadn’t eaten yet and that I was also worrying about something I did when my family was here at Christmas when I was doing the thing I am telling the story about, so the listerner has to be sure and take that into consideration when they give me advice or explain their theory on the possible causes of my current mental block/malaise.

And I don’t even have kids!!!

I find all that detail endearing! So keep writing long, detail-y blog posts. I share detail as a form a intimacy. But, possibly like you, I often attract and have great affection for the curt ones. Variety is the spice of life. Concise looks smarter, but J R R Tolkien went on and on and we all think he was pretty smart, so…

Also, anyone who can live through being a stay at home parent has a brain of iron, not mush. Strength to your sword arm!

Just so you know *you are not alone* and six words is hardly ever better than 1000.

Chris O'Rourke Says:
February 8th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I have no idea at the moment what my six words would be but I think when I post to my blog from now on, I’ll try to make sure that each paragraph can be at the very least summed up in 6 words.
“Maybe tomorrow I can finally rest” I suppose will work as my 6 words.