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Tanara McCauley

~ Love Knows Color

Tanara McCauley

Tag Archives: short stories

What Happens Next?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by tanaramccauley in Short Stories, Songs, and Poetry, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

amwriting, book giveaway, books, characters, Christian fiction, conflict, creative thinking, james scott bell, moral, outside the box, paragraph writing, plot and structure, questions, redemption, relationships, scenes, setting, short stories, writing

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My mind is always churning. I comfort myself with the notion that I’m a writer and, as such, my thoughts should walk a creative distance outside the box of normal thinking folks. Honestly, though, sometimes I suspect I’m a blurted comment away from being professionally observed.

As for those thoughts I think, they tend to come in scenes with the promise of a story somewhere. Absurd or dull ones get shot down as quickly as they come, lingering ones may turn into a short story (or at least get the nod of an honorable intention to make a short story), and great ones get scribbled down and chewed on with the promise of a full book someday.

Then there are the write-a-paragraph-and-never-touch-again scenes. There’s a story, typically something of redemptive or moral value, but I don’t know what it is. It could be anything, so why limit it to one thing? But if I don’t limit it to one thing, how will it ever become anything? And there I go again, off on my mental tangent…

Now here’s where you come in! Written below is a very short scene. The characters are there (at least the initial two), and the stage is set for something…

That “something” is up to you.

Throw me ideas for conflict, questions, promises, future hopes, past regrets, titles…whatever comes to your mind after you read the paragraph.* If your mind embraces the scene and takes off with it…feel free to write it out and add to the story instead of just offering your idea.*

Here goes…

The bed was hard and stiff, as if it had been soaked through then dried in a harsh summer sun. Jenise perched on the edge with one leg crossed over the other and fingered the cheap dove necklace sticking to her skin. The window facing her was lifted just high enough for a small bird to fit through, as high as it could go, and despite several holes in the screen, no air seemed to come in.

A cart rumbled up to the door and paused, then rumbled away again accompanied by the faint tunes of a radio with poor reception. Jenise took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke over the sleeping form of her new husband. Only his fingers moved in response, the rough tips finding the back of her polyester slip and sticking like velcro.

“David,” Jenise called in a soft, shaky voice, half hoping he didn’t hear…

Now it’s your turn! Tell me what happens next. Where are they? Why are they there? What’s keeping her awake while he’s sleeping? What’s she thinking about? I can’t wait to see the ideas that come pouring in.

And that’s not all…the most creative, workable idea or add-on will receive a new copy of James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, a must-have for every writer or writer-to-be. Be creative and have fun!

*Please do not submit using profanity, gratuitous sexual content, or malicious violence.

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Dancing on a Cloud…of Relationships

04 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by tanaramccauley in Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

amwriting, author, Christmas, dancing on a cloud, family, New Year, relationships, road trip, short stories, tea, travel, vacation, writer

dancingonacloud

Dancing on a Cloud. It’s not what I’m actually doing, just the name of the tea I’m drinking; and how I feel after spending a few weeks wrapping gifts, eating good food, reliving past times, and driving the open road.

roadtripping

And though I love being home in Arizona, there’s a certain euphoria to zipping my jacket all the way up because winter is actually cold; and a near manic joy to being able to stick my hand under the bed and look for a kid’s shoe without having to worry if a scorpion will finally get me.

But more than all of that, it’s just being with family. Being the middle sister in a set of three girls all a year apart, and big sister to the coolest, tallest little brother ever, I’m like a kid at Christmas–especially when it is Christmas–when we’re all together again. Add a grandma, a set of in-laws who are like extra parents, old friends, and some of the cutest kids on the planet, and you’ve got yourself one happy writer.

nieces

It got me to thinking about relationships and how they are pretty much the core of our lives the short time we live them. They are also the inspiration behind what we read, watch, and listen to. And because much of what I write deals with relationships between people–parents, spouses, strangers, friends, enemies, siblings, and the like–a short series on the topic seems like a great way to start the year.

So for the next few weeks I’ll be highlighting relationships in my posts. I’ll vary it up with some exposition, video, fictional short stories, and maybe a poem or two.

If something strikes a chord, or you have a relationship topic you’d like to see, by all means chime in! That way while we’re relationship exploring, we can get some relationship building going on at the same time.

Stay tuned, and Happy 2013!

 

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Newly Wed and Hostile – Truth or Fiction Story 5

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by tanaramccauley in Short Stories, Songs, and Poetry, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

arguments, author, Christian fiction, hostile, marriage, newlyweds, relationships, short stories, truth, writer, writing

It’s Truth or Fiction Tuesday! To be eligible to win the $25 Amazon gift card remember to cast your vote using the comments box. For detailed instructions click here.

Don’t do it!

Wisdom called to Tina like a patient friend, and other relevant sayings joined the chorus: “Two wrongs don’t make a right. Be the bigger person. Kill him with kindness.” She knew she should relent. Her mind ran through a host of reasons why her current intentions would only make things worse. But she was seething.

He’d erased all twenty-two episodes of her Judge Judy.

And he’d done it on purpose.

Tina shifted on the couch and took steady aim at the DVR list. Damien wanted to see this football game as bad as she’d wanted to catch up on her favorite court show. She sharpened her anger with the memory of how nonchalant he’d been when she’d confronted him.

His “yeah, so?” was like an audible smirk over the phone line.

Yeah so this! Tina bit her bottom lip, squinted her eyes, and pressed delete. She’d timed it so perfectly that when Damien walked in seconds later, the remote was still pointed at the TV like a smoking gun.

“Hey babe.” Damien passed through the kitchen and frowned at the clean stove. “No dinner?”

If she’d had any guilt about what she’d just done, it grew wings and flew away.

“Sorry, no dinner,” she said with a broad smile.

He approached her in his delivery blues, his thin lips making a valiant effort to form a pout. Before he spoke, the notice plastered across the sixty-five inch screen caught his attention: No Entries.

“What did you do?!” He snatched the remote and began shaking it, pushing random buttons like there was a magic formula to bringing his game back.

“What?” Tina rounded her eyes and lifted her brows.

“I didn’t even watch that game yet, Tina!”

“Well, I didn’t watch my shows either. You didn’t have a problem deleting those did you?” Her eyes retreated into slits and she sat back with her arms crossing her chest. She could tell by the heat rising up her neck that her light face was turning the color of a pomegranate.

“Your shows? This is about your stupid judge shows?” Damien threw the remote on the floor by her socked feet. “Those shows air a million times a week. I’ve been avoiding phone calls and TV’s all day waiting to watch that game. And you erase it over some dumb show?”

No, it wasn’t just the shows. It was everything about their four-month-old marriage. She was tired of him walking in asking about dinner. How about asking how her day went? She was sick of seeing the laundry pile up, with his only contribution being to pluck out his necessary pieces and ask her to iron them.

They both worked full-time jobs, but somehow she came home and had yet more work to do while he had none. He was a modern-day Ralph Kramden, and it was about time he found out she was no Alice. She’d had enough.

Tina picked up the remote and held her head high while Damien continued his rant. His dark face turned even darker as he gained momentum. She stole glances at him and wondered if he was really as handsome as she’d imagined when she was walking down the aisle. With his top lip curling in a half snarl and his eyes bucked like that, she wasn’t sure.

She turned to the game show channel. Not being a fan of Jeopardy didn’t stop her from calling out answers like she’d been watching it all her life. “What is hickory!”

“Oh, you’re just gonna ignore me now, huh?” Damien said.

“What are the Rocky Mountains!”

Damien walked over to the TV and pulled out the plug, then held the cord with a triumphant grin before he dropped it to the floor like a strangled pet. Tina’s mouth fell open, and she barely had time to close it again before Damien stalked back, took the remote, and went to the room, slamming and locking the door.

Tina stayed on the couch. Her stomach growled, and she regretted not having had the foresight to at least fix herself something to eat.

No food. No TV. She was becoming a victim of her own plot.

She huffed a sigh and went to knock on the door.

“Give me back the remote!” she demanded.

Damien turned up whatever he was watching.

Tina balled her fist and shook it in the air. She’d started this fight, if he thought he would win he had another thing coming. She grabbed a flashlight and pushed open the sliding glass door to the backyard, then walked around the pool to the side of the house.

Frogs croaked a conversation in the cool night air, and Tina felt like a mission impossible agent as she opened the breaker box and shined her light on the labeled switches.

She pulled one and looked at the window where Damien had run like a fox to his hole. Nothing happened.

“Not that one,” Tina muttered to herself. She pulled another switch. “Not that one either.”

Before she pulled the third, she remembered some of the verses her sister had shared with her about marriage. Something about a soft answer turning away wrath, a virtuous wife doing her husband no wrong, and wives being submissive to their husbands as to the Lord.

The last verse was like a dagger in the heart, but she pulled it out and patched it over with excuses. She was new at the whole Christian thing, there had to be some kind of concession for rookies.

She pulled the next switch and, voila, the lights went out in bad-husband-land. Ha! Tina danced a little jig all the way back into the house.

Just as she slid the heavy glass back into place and pulled the blinds, Damien came storming from the bedroom.

“Are you crazy?” The smile on her face must’ve convinced him she was. “You’re certifiable Tina! Who thinks to go outside and cut the power off from the breaker. Did I really marry a crazy person? Unbelievable!”

He slammed the blinds back out of the way, bending one in the process, and stomped outside.

Crazy, huh? Tina waited until she saw his figure approaching, then slid the door closed and locked it. “Yeah, I’m crazy!” she said through the glass. “Crazy for marrying you!”

The joy of outwitting him lasted only a moment. Wisdom was back in her ear again. She couldn’t really leave him out there. She waited for him to ask just once then let him back in.

Damien entered without speaking and went directly to their room, and Tina returned to her couch post in front of the remoteless TV.

He owed her an apology. And this time she would stand her ground until she got it.

“Hey,” Damien said. Tina looked up and found him standing near the edge of the couch. “Can you come set the alarm?”

Her alarm clock was a complex piece of technology, one Damien hadn’t bothered to figure out since he had Tina to work it for him. But there was no apology in his question. His posture and tone made it clear he was speaking on a needs-basis only.

“No,” she said.

“Then how am I supposed to wake up for work in the morning?”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

“Fine!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll set it myself.”

“Imagine that,” Tina called after him. There were only two ways he could figure out that clock. And the first, the manual, was long gone. She waited with a smug grin on her face for him to come tramping back with her apology and needing her help.

Instead, several minutes later, it was her clock that came flying down the hall, followed by a final door slam.

She refused to credit him with the victory, even though she ended up on the couch with a decorative throw as her blanket. She set the alarm on her cell phone and forced herself to sleep.

When Damien came home the next day, Tina tensed herself for round two.

“Hey,” he said when he walked into the kitchen from the garage.

“Hey,” she responded with a guarded heart.

He piled a series of bags on the counter. Tina smelled the scent of Chinese before noticing the Panda Express logos. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was enough food for both of them.

Damien opened a separate sack and pulled out a rectangle box. He sat it on the counter, then busied himself with grabbing plates and drinks for their dinner.

Tina looked at the box and burst out laughing. It was the most generic alarm clock her eyes had ever seen. Damien laughed too, then walked up and put his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Me too,” Tina said.

And just like that, being newlyweds was once again a good thing.

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Truth or Fiction Story 1 – Eyewitness Testimony

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by tanaramccauley in Short Stories, Songs, and Poetry, Writing and Pursuing Publication

≈ 30 Comments

Tags

author, Christian fiction, eyewitness testimony, faith, fear, fiction, gift card, giveaway, short stories, story, testify, true, truth, vote, writing

It’s Truth or Fiction Tuesday! Just a few reminders:

  1. To be eligible to win the $25 USD Amazon gift e-card giveaway, you must comment whether you think the story is true or fiction in the REPLY/COMMENTS section. You also earn extra entries when you share the link on your Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, and note in the reply/comments section that you did.
  2. The stories, even if they are in first person, are not necessarily my experiences, so keep that in mind when you vote.
  3. And now…

Eyewitness Testimony

I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Now I’m probably going to die.

“They’re almost ready for you,” Mandy says.

She’s the D.A.’s assistant. Her attempt at an encouraging smile doesn’t fool me one bit. The truth is in her eyes. They’re bland eyes, really; like they’ve never seen anything more exciting than water boiling on the stove. And in their calm, bored way, they show she thinks I’m good as dead too.

I want to say something, but all I manage is a nod and a lift lip just as phony as hers. She goes back into the courtroom, and I twist and re-twist my fingers so hard they hurt.

I ought to get up and leave; just go straight out the door, backtrack the bus route I took to get here, stuff a bag with clothes and my most important belongings—college degree, songbook, Bible, and my Matchbox Twenty CD collection—and hightail it out of the city. I would do it too, if I didn’t feel like something else was clamping me to this plastic chair, something besides the escort assigned to usher me from the reception area to the witness stand.

I didn’t think to bring a sweater. So even though it’s pushing a hundred outside, I’m starting to tremble underneath my sleeveless blouse. My toes are freezing too. Kim, my best friend since second grade, shows her head of curls just as I’m about to give in to an onslaught of teeth chattering. Praise God she thought to bring coffee.

“You look awful,” she says. She drops her work satchel and pulls her chair close to mine. Her makeup is as fresh as if she’d just applied it, and her perfume punches away the smell of hot mochas.

I grab the cup she offers and hug it to my chest before taking a sip. “I feel worse,” I say. “I’m just ready for this to be over.”

“Having second thoughts again?”

“Uh-huh.” I look away, and for a moment I’m irritated. Her faith is stronger than mine, and even though I know it’s all in my head, I sometimes feel like she mounts a spiritual high horse when I’m in the trenches.

I’m not in the mood for any more verses or prayers or pep-talks about doing the right thing. She seems to notice, because she sits there quietly. For some reason, after several minutes, this annoys me too.

Mandy returns with my escort. “You ready?”

I’m still cold. I take a swallow of the hot coffee to warm my insides, and it scalds my tongue. I give it back to Kim and she squeezes my arm.

“Be brave,” she says, “God will help you, and I’m right behind you.”

I can only nod. My head aches. I realize my hair is tied too tight. Now that I notice it, my scalp where the pin holds my bun is screaming for relief. I guess it’s a good thing, because the distraction helps me walk the length of the courtroom without thinking too hard about the fear of seeing him.

Our eyes meet for a second as I slink past, and in that moment I see the same threat an anonymous caller gave two nights ago. Talk and I’m dead.

So much for holding it together. I’m shaking so hard I can barely suck a straight breath, and my knees don’t feel stable anymore. All of a sudden I feel like crying.

The swear-in comes and goes, and the district attorney seems to magically appear right in front of me. He could use a haircut and a new suit. His empathy seems real, but not so much that it slows his agenda. He dives right into questioning me.

“Rene, tell us how you know the defendant.”

“He’s my neighbor,” I say.

“Can you be more specific as to the proximity and the type of building?”

“We live in a triplex. That’s, um, like a duplex but with another place on top. Javi lives on top. I live on the bottom right.”

“And who lives on the bottom left?” He asks the questions as casually as if we’re talking over lunch. So far they’re easy, and I’m starting to calm a little.

“Right now it’s empty,” I say.

“And how long have you and the defendant, Javi, been neighbors?”

“He’s been there since I moved in, so about two years.”

“Two years.”

The way he says it and pauses reminds me of court cases I’ve seen on TV. It also gives me time to take in the twenty-something faces peppered about the small room.

“Two years is a long time,” he says. “Do you know Javi beyond just being neighbors?”

The question makes me look at Javi against my will, and my mouth goes dry. Even now, sitting there on trial for murder and with the threat of my life in his green eyes, he’s one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen.

He’s Cuban, but I know that only because he told me the origin of his accent. Anyone else would think he’s just light-skinned like me. We’ve only talked in passing, and despite his notorious drug reputation he’s always been nice to me, but that doesn’t qualify as knowing each other. I manage to pull out of his stare and answer the question.

“Um…not well.”

“Let’s talk about the night of August 27th. Tell the court what you told the reporting officer.”

I look down at my hands and clear my throat.

“It was about six or so. I’d just come home from work and was going in when Javi and three others passed me on their way to his place.”

“Can you tell the court if this young man, Marcus, was one of the others?”

He holds a picture up to the jury then places it in front of me, and the tears I wanted to cry earlier wet my eyes again. The boy in the picture wears a baseball uniform and looks happy, like a seventeen-year-old should look. My mind erases the printed image and brings up the frightened kid I saw on his last day of life. I want to throw up.

“Yes,” I say. “He was.”

“What happened after you saw them?”

“They went their way and I went mine.”

“And then?”

“About an hour or so later I was fixing something to eat and they turned on music upstairs.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

“Some banging around…and talking…like somebody was angry. I couldn’t tell what they were saying though, the music was too loud.”

“Then?”

“Everything but the music stopped.” My hands develop a cold sweat as I rub the chipped paint from my nails. The D.A. walks back to his table and leans against it. I wish he’d stayed in front of me. Now I feel exposed.

“When did the music finally stop?” he asks.

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes later.”

He’s silent, like he wants me to keep going. When I don’t, he waits for me to look at him, then speaks to me in a soft voice. “Tell us what happened next, Rene.”

I’m accustomed to hiding behind humor, and I want to say something light—like it’s just like me to start cooking something without making sure I have all the ingredients—before I explain what happened when I walked out on my way to the grocery store. But humor would be inappropriate. Because some of the people are crying so soft it sounds like kittens mewing.

And I’m afraid.

If I tell everything I saw and heard from the shadow of my doorway–memories to both haunt me and put Javi away for the rest of his life—I could be killed. And I don’t want to die.

It’s not too late to quit, since nothing I’ve said so far is enough for a conviction. And I’m convincing myself I’m not strong enough to do this when a verse pops in my head.

I, even I, am He who comforts you.

I look up expecting to see somebody speaking the words, and I find Kim sitting by herself near the back. Seeing her face reminds me that she was the one who quoted the verse to me last night.

Who are you, that you should be afraid of a man…and you forget the Lord your Maker?

The words come back so clearly they stun me, and Kim nods as if she knows I’m hearing them. She smiles, and I decide I will tell her later that her purple lipstick is not flattering.

“Rene?” The district attorney needs an answer.

I’m still scared out of my mind, but something else bothers me more than this. I have forgotten my Maker, haven’t I?

I let the verse play around in my head a few more times. When it settles deep enough to stop my heart from pounding, I look away from Kim, past the district attorney, and rest my gaze on Javi.

Then, I testify.

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