A Six-Sentence Story
The announcement came as I was on vacation at the lake house. My writer’s group was having a six-sentence story contest. I love a good writing challenge and this one was fun and interesting. Each sentence had to carry weight. The story needed to grab the reader’s attention, carry through with a story arc and end in a conclusion. All in six sentences. What to write about? Where to get ideas?
Leonardo da Vinci had a term for his visualization process: Saper Vedere -Knowing how to see.
Rick Rubin, in his book The Creative Act says “The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. To see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible.”
Seeing, really seeing the moonlight shine across the bay one night was the inspiration I needed. Here’s my story, in six sentences.
Legacy
The moon woke me in the middle of the night as it shone through the bedroom window of the lakeside house I’d inherited. It’s all that’s left of my parents. I stepped outside and saw its half-face, bright enough to spin silver ripples across the dark water and cast lacy wicker shadows on the deck. I remembered my mother told me that once, after we’d scattered some of Dad’s ashes into the bay, she’d gotten her pillow and blanket and had slept on the porch on a night like this. Because her fading memory often blurred the lines between fantasy and reality, I didn’t believe her then. Now, I do.
Where are inspirations and ideas? All around us if we open our eyes and really see.
Threads of Thought
Your turn. “Know how to see.” Find a small moment, thought or idea and try your hand at a six sentence story, or a poem, or a painting, or a sketch, or… Live life creatively!
Fun summer reads are only a click away. Out of the Crayon Box: thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life, and Until Italy: A Traveler’s Memoir are here!
