A Story in Six Words Only?!

A long time ago on a blog far far away, there was a festival of ultra-short stories called Let’s Be Brief, hosted by Middle Zone Musings. The rules were simple: tell a story in 6 words only.

I don’t know what other people liked, but here were my ten faves:

1. The Axis in WWII: haiku! Gesundheit. (Howard Waldrop)
2. ball, pumpkin, slipper, wedding. then what?(Isabella Mori)
3. He said “I am your father”. (Scott Bird – I had to like this one, being a Star Wars fan)
4. *Ring* Help! He’s– Bang! *Click* Hmmmmmmm (Robert Hruzek)
5. Pets don’t mind if you fart. (Hartley B. Singer (HART)- not really a story, but a great bumper sticker anyway!)
6. “Marry me Susan.” “Yes.” “Really?” “No.” (Ben Yoskovitz)
7. I learned. And the world shrank.(Ben Yoskovitz – yes, he’s that good)
8. Her heart sank. Fish ate it. (Lolita Barnsworth)
9. “The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.” (Orson Scott Card )
10. Attempted six words. Fell short. (Mark Newton)

Ahhhhhh, the creativity.

go AWAY!

… and I mean that nicely. I mean that you could go away from this blog and read some other great posts by some other great writers out there. (See how I subtly suggested that I’m a great writer? Feel free to agree).

If you’re in Australia or New Zealand or Papua-New-Guinea, it’s Monday morning and you just KNOW that you want to procrastinate before getting stuck into your work. If you’re elsewhere in the world on the tail-end of your weekend and you’re looking for some good reading to cap off the weekend, here it is.

First one for the Mums/Moms:

Boys Will Be Boys – And So What? »

Next (quite a few nexts actually), I was part of a writer’s project this month:  What I Learned From Animals! Here’s all the entries…

• What I Learned From Animals, by Audra Krell at KRELLFISH
• What I Learned From a Yappy Dog, by Pete Aldin at Freaked-Out Fathers
• What I Learned From Shooting a Muskrat, by Brad Shorr at Word Sell, Inc.
• Dog Parables, Part 1, by Ruth Hull Chatlien at Ruth’s Visions and Revisions
• Dog Parables, Part 2, by Ruth Hull Chatlien at Ruth’s Visions and Revisions
• What I Learned From Sam the Border Collie Dog, by Andrew Rondeau at Great Management
• They Touch Your Soul, by Marcie Pickelsimer at My Two Boys
• What I Learned From Animals, by Christine Sine at Godspace
• Look a possum! by Danielle Houghton at sevendaymother.com
• Welcome to the Country, by Jonathan Pippenger at Growing Up With The Kids
• Who’s Training Who, Anyway? by David Bowles at Writing the Westward Sagas
• Life Lessons from SpongeBob Squarepants, by Monica Brand at Paper Bridges
• What I Learned From Animals, by Lillie Ammann at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye
• Faith Before Fear, by Debbra Stephens at Garlands of Hosannas
• What I Learned From… Bees, by Sam Brougher at Your Scared Seductive System
• What I Learned From Dogs, by Karen Hanrahan at Best of Mother Earth
• What I Learned About Blogging… From My Granddogs, by Jean Browman at Transforming Stress
• What I Learned From Linus, by Gordon Atkinson at High Calling Blogs
• What I learned from a dog, by Sterling Camden at Chip’s Quips
• We Are Different From Animals, by Kim Quon at Preparation 4 Eternity
• What I Learned From Animals, by Lisa Velle at getting it write for you
• What I Learned From Animals – A Boy Becomes Like God, by Marcus Goodyear at goodwordediting.com
• What I Learned From Mother Robin, by Brad Shorr at Word Sell, Inc.
• Molly and Ministry, by Songbird at Reflectionary
• How to step out of your normal environment – and step into a new one, by Jackie Cameron at Jackie Cameron
• What I Learned From My Cat About the Writing Life, by Joanna Young at Confident Writing
• What I Learned From My Dog, by Karen Putz at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
• What I Learned From Animals, by Nancy Janisch at Conversation in Faith Weblog
• The Tao of Roo: Lessons in Simplicity From My Dog, by Sara at On Simplicity
• What I Learned About Blogging… From Rats, by Jean Browman at Transforming Stress
• What I Learned From a Cat, by Luke Gideon at Luke Gedeon
• What I Learn From Kung Fu Panda, by Robert A. Henru at Reason4Smile
• What I Learned From Ants, by Ulla Hennig at Ulla Hennigs Photoblog
• A Cat Autopsy and Animal CSI: What I Learned From Animals, by Samuel Adams at Associated Content [UPDATE]

And finally -not two, but three from the Host with the Most (”what can I say? the topic inspired me!”):

• Well Ain’t That Just the Duck’s Posterior! by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings
• What Are You Saying, Without Saying a Word? by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings
• The First Step to Effective Communication, by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings

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How Am I Doing… Really?

Many moons ago, I wrote a very long parenting article – much too long to submit to a magazine like my others. It’s been sitting around collecting dust for a couple of years, but I’ll link to it now and maybe it’ll be of service to someone out there.

It’s designed to explore the following:

If I was to ask you how happy are you with your parenting overall, what would you say? Would you be beating yourself up with good ol’ Gen X parental guilt? I’m finding more than a few parents are saying to me they feel they’re doing poorly in their role, way too close to it to really even assess things…

 

What if I followed those questions up with: “How do you know how you’re doing?” What evidence would you turn to so you could give me an accurate appraisal of your ”effectiveness” as a mother or father? Wouldn’t it be good to find markers that actually give you factual information?

It’s called How Am I Doing … Really? . I’d love you to read it and would welcome your feedback.

Obscure Songs chaser

Well, I guess I should be writing about serious things like parenthood, behaviour modification or male role modelling. But it’s a holiday weekend and I just don’t feel like it.

Besides, I promised to one day follow up on an earlier post, where we had a great conversation about my favourite obscure songs. There was even some controversy over what constituted obscure, with Zeppelin purists shaking their heads over my inclusion of a Zeppelin song on my list.

I asked readers for their own lists and most I’d never heard of.

So here’s a chaser to my list. From all those who submitted, a music video of MY choice to sample their tastes and broaden our own musical horizons. Thanks again to all who joined in!

1. From Jonathan P.,   Fitzcaraldo – The Frames …

And an encore from Jonathan’s list (turn your volume down or up, according to your inclination)…

2. From Bunk Strutts, Black Crow 16 Shells – Tom Waits …

And a Bunk encore:

3. From Leah Mac, You’re 39 You’re Beautiful and You’re Mine by Paul Kelly

As a encore from Leah, it was recommended us fellas watch this clip and see what we, er, notice about it. If you can live with the music for more than 20 seconds that is…

5. And lastly one from my list, Down Among the Dead Men, Flash and the Pan:

 

Folks, if you want to add your own list of favourite “obscure” songs (and obscure is in the eye of the beholder), feel free to leave a comment and I will do a followup post to this.

National Fatherhood Initiative