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Wednesday, November 04, 2009

One Line Wednesday



An unexpected delivery of government-issued tender with a staggering number of zeros and favorable correspondence from a forgotten publishing house barely registered on my radar last week.

At that, I'm going to leave you hanging. For now.

If this were a typical post, I’d have to give an immediate accounting of all those zeros. A normal post would, likewise, require an detailing of what, exactly, I received from the publishing house, and why were they forgotten, anyway? And, perhaps most importantly, how could deliveries of such magnitude fail to register on my radar?

But not today, at least not yet. On One Line Wednesday, vagueness, brevity, and misdirection are the order of the day--at least for a few hours.

If you're new to One Line Wednesday, here’s the lowdown: Each week, I’ll get things started with the single most intriguing line I’ve managed to craft in the intervening seven days. Each week there’ll also be some attempt at a "Linky" widget so you'll have the opportunity to link to your one line post, if you have one. (We've had a bit of trouble locating a free, uncomplicated linky--trying something new today, that I won't actually get to see until it posts--adventure!) Even though my readers now demand that I 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.

Although One Line Wednesday is a simple celebration of the single good line, the rules, as I mentioned above, are a little different for me. I used to just post my line and leave my readers permanently hanging, but my husband and Jen cried foul, and insist that i have to come back at the end of the day and explain the origin of my cryptic prose. 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.

OK--let's have some one line fun!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Okay, I'll start. My favorite line this past week:

"Oh, really? Thanks. You smell like soup."

Unknown said...

Oh I see. I guess maybe I should have entered my screen name where it asked for title. That's okay.

Life Laugh Latte said...

Is Ed MacMahn (spelling?) sending these from heaven now? Thanks for stopping by and sticking with my insanely long post. So sweet of you. Holly at lifelaughlatte.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

My one line.... "Well because Dad would have it no other way, he lived for the drama inherent in baseball and what better way to end the decade and comeback for the Yankees than to win the World Series in Game 7 at home in New York." From the blog of a friend.

Lori

Kathleen said...

Wishing I would receive an unexpected gov't-issued paper with lots of zeros!! Can't wait to hear the story!

Unknown said...

I think I would be so awful at this, but I always enjoy reading your efforts!

Catherine Wannabe said...

In the ABC's of behavioral modification, I forgot entirely about the consequences.

Holly Lefevre said...

I may give this a try next week...I am not known for being succinct.

Holly

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