Category: Six Sentence Sunday

Six Sentence Sunday 7/29/2012

Published by Kelly on July 29, 2012

Welcome back to my 6-sentence snippet series from my book, Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. Over the next 11 weeks, I will be sharing with you snippet from each chapter. (Click here to see last week’s snippet)

Today we meet Lacey, a woman who’s struggled for 4 years to sell the house that she owned with her ex-husband, the last symbol of her old life. She always said when she sold the house, she’d cover up the tattoo she got the day after she got married.

She’d always said she’d treat herself to a Betsey Johnson swimsuit when the house sold, but they’d announced a month ago that they were going out of business. By the time the house sold, she wouldn’t have a chance. Oh well, it made a better early birthday present anyway, Lacey thought to herself, admiring the suit as she relaxed on the chaise. But the tattoo – she couldn’t really cheat with the tattoo. If she covered it up now, it would only remind her that those last ties still weren’t severed. For the millionth time, she pushed a familiar thought from her head… that it would never be over...

That’s all for today! Be sure to check out some of the other talented people over at www.SixSunday.com, and come back to visit next week!

1 Comment

Six Sentence Sunday 7/22/2012

Published by Kelly on July 22, 2012

I have not fallen off the Six Sentence Sunday planet, I promise. Actually, I have been spending pretty much every spare minute editing the hell out of my new novel, Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. Over the next 12 weeks, I will be sharing with you a 6-sentence snippet from this book, starting today.

Today we meet Jenna, a college girl getting her first tattoo with her sister and her father, the two closest people in her life. She has a complicated and tense relationship with her mother, who kicked her out of the house when she was growing up.

Jenna turned the corner to the narrow hallway that led to the house’s single bathroom at the end of it, walking by a large tin type photo they’d taken at Silver Dollar City for Jenna’s twelfth birthday. They’d dressed them all up in olde tyme outfits, her father almost a spitting image of Jed Clampett. Jenna sat on his knee in a bonnet and pigtails, the frilly frock they’d dressed her in gathered in a big pile of ruffles that fell well below her short legs. Laura wore what looked like a christening gown even though she was nine years old, smiling softly under her bright white lace bonnet, her hand resting on the shoulder of their mother, the one Jenna struggled to call “Mom”. In the photo, she looked tired, probably from chasing two high-energy girls who constantly caused trouble when they were together around a theme park all day.

Jenna was a spitting image of her mother, especially in this photo, but the similarities ended there.

That’s all for today! Be sure to check out some of the other talented people over at www.SixSunday.com, and come back to visit next week!

3 Comments

Six Sentence Sunday 6/3/2012

Published by Kelly on June 3, 2012

It’s another Six Sentence Sunday, and happy summer to y’all! Today, we meet Jenna, the main character of the first story in Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. Jenna is getting ready to get a tattoo with her father and sister, and is reflecting on her complicated relationship with her mother.

Jenna was a spitting image of her mother, especially in this photo, but the similarities ended there. Her mom just didn’t get her, and never had. She didn’t get why she’d want to go to college when she could marry her high school boyfriend and settle down in the picturesque Ozark hills. Jenna thought those days had passed long ago; maybe it was why her mother was the only one in the photo who actually looked like she fit in the era they were simulating, who didn’t look like she was wearing a costume. If it weren’t for the fact that she looked so much like her mom, she might’ve second guessed her parentage. But not her father… he got Jenna, so much that he’d sacrificed his marriage to their mother to keep the kind of closeness they’d always shared.

Thanks for dropping by! Be sure to check out the other talented peeps at Six Sentence Sunday and drop them a line, too.

Six Sentence Sunday 5/20/2012

Published by Kelly on May 20, 2012

It’s another Six Sentence Sunday! (I’m late on my post – my bad. Better late than never.) Today I’m sharing another snippet from Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. In this chapter we meet Anna, a grad student still grieving the loss of her mother.

On the wall across from her, the family picture they’d taken when she was ten still hung on the wall: her handsome father, her beautiful mother, and one grinning, chubby ten-year-old in the middle. Catching her breath, she still couldn’t get over how beautiful her mother had been.

Still, she reminded herself, her mother had been beautiful because she was so image conscious and had such a distorted view of her body that she’d purged everything she ate for years. Staring at the picture, Anna could see the line from her mother’s dark makeup, the makeup she used to hide her sallow skin tone, permanently jaundiced from all the vomiting. She had eventually died because she wanted so badly to be beautiful. It was why Anna rarely wore makeup and her father constantly told her she was perfect just the way she was, with a few extra pounds and a low-maintenance hairdo.

Stay tuned for next week!

Comments closed

Six Sentence Sunday 4/29/2012

Published by Kelly on April 29, 2012

It’s the end of April and I’m getting closer and closer to getting Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook ready for showtime. Today’s six is from one of the stories from this collection.

In this story, we meet Kasey, a young woman in denial about the aggressive nature of her mother’s cancer, a denial that takes the form of trying to give her another grandchild, thinking it will restore her will to live.

Kasey’s birth mother had only been thirteen when she became pregnant, and her birth mother’s aunt (whom Kasey had lovingly referred to as Murr for years) had stepped up to take care of her, become her mother in the loosest definition of the word. Murr was a lot easier to say than “Great Aunt,” and lot less awkward than calling her by “Grace,” her first name. Kasey watched her through the glass, seeing tears of what Kasey hoped was joy (but could have easily also been from one of her increasingly frequent coughing fits) collect in the wrinkles on her face, creasing starkly as she laughed watching her grandson dance in front of the fire. Hopefully he wouldn’t take after his father and think the fire was a toy.

“Is Gracie really going to get a tattoo with you tomorrow?” Shannon asked, her bottom lip shivering in the cold air.

“She says she is, so she better,” Kasey shrugged.

That’s all for now! Be sure to check out all the other talented peeps at Six Sentence Sunday. We all toil away in obscurity; this is just one way we get our names out there.

Six Sentence Tax Day

Published by Kelly on April 15, 2012

It’s everyone favorite holiday, Tax Day! I did mine back in February – sorry, suckers. Today, I’m sharing with you an excerpt from my current work in progress (but not for long), Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. In this story we meet Sarah, a 38-year-old divorcee who’s getting ready to get her first tattoo.

She’d decided on the Celtic scroll several years back. Her family was originally Scot’s Irish, a stark contrast to Jason’s wealthy British heritage. She looked at the sunlight pouring in though the patio doors in the home she’d made for herself. Buying the place was like getting back to her roots, the roots she’d had before Jason had grabbed her by the hair and uprooted her. It had taken a long time to get here, but she loved living simply, with a great new group of friends, a new career, everything he’d convinced her wasn’t worth her time. Now, if she could just get back to her old friends.

That’s all for today. Since I’m stuck in sunny Miami – go ahead and check out all the other talented folks on Six Sentence Sunday for me! My personal favorites… Carmen DeSousa, Wendy K. Russo, and Monica Enderle Pierce.

4 Comments

Six Sentence Sunday 4/8/2012

Published by Kelly on April 8, 2012

Welcome to another Six Sentence Sunday! Today’s snippet comes from the “Hitchhike” vignette in my debut novel The Redheaded Stepchild.

Even in the blurry vision in front of me I could tell there was no wood paneling in this place. No ugly orange-pink flowers, no stiff brown shag carpet, no made-from-cardboard picture frames, no stacks of Lynyrd Skynyrd records, no made-from-pantyhose pillows, no Barbie dream houses made out of various shoe boxes with Tootsie Roll wrappers for doormats. I bet Aunt Paulette never hitchhiked.

No, this was the real deal; this was what real city people lived like. I decided that this was what I would have someday: a minivan with plush seats that drank the water from my soaking children’s bodies like a towel when I picked them up from the pool, a finished basement with a large orgy of brand name toys on the floor. And wallpaper that swallowed diamonds.

Want more than six sentences from The Redheaded Stepchild? It’s available from Amazon and Smashwords for $2.99.

And be sure to check out the other talented authors at Six Sentence Sunday.

1 Comment

Six Sentence Sunday 4/1/2012

Published by Kelly on April 1, 2012

Today’s six comes from The Redheaded Stepchild, my debut novel. In this vignette, Catherine and her siblings are saying goodbye to their father and hello to their mother for the summer.

Dad was one of the only people Luke would hug. It took him almost a year before he was able to give Katrina a hug, and even that was like watching a walking stick try to hug a caterpillar. He stretched one arm just above where Teresa was still attached and nodded as Dad told him to be good. I’m sure Dad didn’t want another late July call from Mom about how his two oldest children had broken her blender trying to make a concoction called “Gross” which they made their baby sister eat by tying her to a chair. Oddly, Mom had been angrier about the broken blender and wasted food than the sibling abuse. Teresa unleeched herself and went skipping off, holding the My Little Pony that had replaced Mr. Monkey Man as number one toy.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to check out all the other talented peeps over at www.SixSunday.com. Some of my favorites are Carmen DeSousa, Monica Enderle Pierce, and Wendy S. Russo.

Six Sentence Sunday 3-25-2012

Published by Kelly on March 25, 2012

It’s another Six Sentence Sunday! Today I’m sharing a snippet from one of my short stories from new collection about women and their tattoos – Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. In this story, Hallie is on the verge of starting a new life with her son, and working her way toward the tattoo from her old life removed.

She inched the SUV up to a stop light, a bright green corvette idling in the next lane over. She suppressed the urge to examine the door panel to determine the easiest point of entry to unlock the car, steal it, and drive into oblivion. The check engine light in her SUV’s instrument panel flicked on, as it typically did when the engine idled for longer than it liked. You couldn’t think about those kinds of things when you were a mom.

Ever since Lucas had gotten too heavy to carry into their small, rent-controlled, two-bedroom apartment, Hallie began letting him take her keys and run to the front door of their building. She didn’t know how he knew at three years old that keys were a symbol of responsibility, but today – like every day – he took the keys she held out for him with an air of deference, like she’d just handed him the cure for cancer.

Don’t forget to check out all the other talented peeps on Six Sentence Sunday!

5 Comments

Six Sentence Sunday 2/26/2012

Published by Kelly on February 26, 2012

I don’t know why, but despite February being the shortest month of the year, it always feels like the longest month to me. And since the only real thing of note is Valentine’s Day (mine was lovely, thank you for asking), today’s six comes from one of the few lovey parts of my debut novel The Redheaded Stepchild.

In this scene, Cady has just had her first car accident and her best friend at work, Johnny, attempts to comfort her. Is comfort the right word…?

You’re right,” I said, wiping the mascara from my face. “Thanks for listening.”

He put his hand on my knee, simultaneously exciting and surprising me. My shin shot forward a couple inches as though it had been hit with a flex hammer. I looked up at his face to see what he was thinking, only to watch his lips say “Any time.”

The door sounded that someone had walked in, and Johnny quickly removed his hand from my leg.

That’s all for now! Hope y’all make it through the last few days of February. If you like what you just read, you can buy The Redheaded Stepchild in paperback or Kindle. Don’t forget to check out all the other talented authors on www.SixSunday.com.

4 Comments