Five Years a Writer

We have one life to live, but the story of our life can be told in many different ways. Maybe the more often we tell it, the better we understand it... Many writers spend years crafting their story into a full-length book with all the challenges that form brings with it — theme, focus, story arc, character development, dialogue, accuracy of memory over the long term, etc. My chosen form bypasses some of those challenges but has others.  I write short-form creative nonfiction, often shorter than 1,000 words and frequently much shorter. I especially enjoy the challenge of the micro length memoir — a life or a life moment in just 100 words. The story matters but the constraint requires particular focus on the craft of writing and on specific word choice; for me, those constraints are fun to work with.   Below are five such micro memoirs. Two I've shared before, three are new. At its best, a micro memoir paints a vivid picture of a specific moment or experience for a specific...