I’m realizing, decades into this business, that what seems to keep me writing is the challenge.  I don’t write to write, content in the act itself.  Not only do I want people to read me, I like the challenge of writing to fit the subject, audience and venue.  A shining moment was when the Woman’s World editor said she liked my short story—I think it was 1400 words—but they’d changed the word count to 1100 words; she imagined I couldn’t cut the story down.  Oh no?  I devoured that challenge with a relish that was its own reward.  And when they bought the revised version, that was the incredible icing on the cake. 

            I’ve heard other writers attest to how exhilarating tightening a work can be, fiction or non-fiction.  How our work shines when we’ve taken the time to delete all the words that aren’t doing the job one hundred percent.   A group of writers have now taken this to new heights in the HarperPerennial book I have yet to get my hands on:  Not Quite What I was Planning:  Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.   Here's one:  Love the men.  Hate the commitment.  I HAD to immediately try writing my own. 

            In and out of love with romance and perfection.  Too long and that feels more like what I think about, not what I am, and memoirs want the deep stuff.  The phrase that came next resonated to my bone marrow, but wasn’t original.  I pressed on.    

            Avoids boxes like the plague.   I really mean "being boxed in" but that’s seven words.  And while I do not like it, being boxed in doesn’t generally come close to killing me, so out with "the plague." Avoids boxes like dog doo. I do always want to extricate myself if I’m boxed in, so more accurate, but less punch, and I've still crossed over that fine line of editing too much and losing the intent.  So, it may not be totally original, but for now, I’m goin’ with it.

            Don’t fence me in.  Thank you.