One Line Wednesdays, The Modified Version

If I knew the best way to extract oil from an African Locust bean, how to seal off brass andirons, or happened to have any homemade Gothic furniture laying about, I'd be, quite literally, in business.

Don’t you just want to read on? Aren’t you wondering what kind of business would demand such knowledge? More pressingly, why would a freelance-writing art teacher lament the lack of such a diverse skill set? And what is an African Locust bean, anyway?

If this were a typical post, I’d have to give a blow by blow of how these gaps in my general knowledge have become an economic obstacle. A normal post would, likewise, require an detailing of my encounter with the African Locust bean. Most tediously, an ordinary post would call upon me to weave the entire assemblage together into some sort of witty observation about life, business, or Gothic styling.

But not today. Not on One Line Wednesday. No, on One Line Wednesday, vagueness, brevity, and misdirection are the order of the day--at least for a few hours. One Line Wednesday is still a simple celebration of the single good line, but my readers--read my husband and Jen--demanded a change in format wherein I return at the end of the day and explain the origin of my line. My husband claims I'm robbing my readers of the opportunity to see how I take something mundane and make it sound epic, which he claims is one of my mad skills, but the bottom line is that he can't handle the curiosity. Jen says the whole thing would serve as a sort of writer's workshop for her.

So I will post a simple explanation of the events inspiring my line this evening.

If you're new to One Line Wednesday, here’s the lowdown: Each week, I’ll get things started with the single best line I’ve managed to craft in the intervening seven days. Each week there’ll also be one of those cool Mr. Linky widgits that you see below (just click it, It works. Really). That’s where you leave a link to your one line post. Even though I'm now required to explain my line, you need not feel any pressure of further explanation. There's no need to worry if your words are “going anywhere.” No of the tricky transitions or epic endings one might expect in traditional prose. Your line can be about anything, as clear or cryptic as you’d like, and who knows—maybe even be true!

If you have no blog, feel free to participate by just commenting as you would for a normal post. If you do have a blog, however, please mention that you are participating in One Line Wednesday, and add a hyperlink to this post. Feel free, also, to copy the official One Line Wednesday image at the opening of this post to illustrate yours, but that’s optional.

But don’t forget the most important thing—have a little low stress fun with the written word. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!