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Tag: tattoos

Six Sentence Sunday 8/5/2012

Welcome back to my 6-sentence snippet series from my book, Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. Over the next 10 weeks, I will be sharing with you snippet from each chapter. (Click here to see last week’s snippet)

Today we meet Beth, a woman who got a tattoo on her honeymoon ten years ago after marrying her husband with cystic fibrosis. As she celebrates her tenth anniversary, she reflects on the permanence of the tattoo.

Charlie sat up to cough, bracing himself with his left arm. Beth’s throat tightened; she could barely even see one year into the future, let alone ten. The tattoo was already starting to fade, the once-black vine now a dark, drab olive green. Why did they always turn greenish instead of fading to gray? Still, if it faded to green, it would only make the rose vine look healthier, more alive, and the edges of the red petals would have the hint of pink they always got when they were at their fullest bloom.

Maybe she’d keep the tattoo after all.

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!

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Six Sentence Sunday 7/29/2012

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!

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Six Sentence Sunday 7/22/2012

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!

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Six Sentence Sunday 4/29/2012

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.

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Six Sentence Sunday 3-25-2012

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!

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New fiction project underway – call for help!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my next tattoo. Coincidentally, today is the 4th anniversary of my divorce, and I always said that when my marriage was over, I would get a new tattoo to cover up the one that I got just a few days after our wedding. I wanted to get this tattoo four years ago, but I was left with a house that couldn’t sell and he couldn’t pay for. Things are just now starting to look up in the market, and I’m anxiously waiting for the last tie to be severed.

That, of course, is the Reader’s Digest version, but it’s a story that is anything but uncommon. A physical change that represents a significant event or belief that someone has. Sure, there are plenty of people out there who get tattoos for no reason whatsoever (I’m looking at you, University of Texas hipster), but I think that for the most part, people get tattoos to commemorate something special.

That’s where you come in. I want to know the story behind your tattoo, whether it’s your first or your 20th, so you can be part of this collection of stories. If you’re game, e-mail me the Reader’s Digest version of your tattoo story (or more, depending on how many creative liberties you’ll allow me to take).

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