The Red House

Stiff wasn't the word for it. My limbs ached horribly and my neck was stuck in a uncomfortable position looking down at my phone screen that blinked on and off slowly. I moved my legs painfully, looking up for a second out the car window. More flat, tasteless grass land. I looked down again. My neck made a weird popping sound. Sixteen whole hours in the car. We stopped once to rest for five or so hours on the side of the road then it was up and out onto to the open road again. I was thrilled. Really, I was. Visionaries. I have a whole family of them, people who will drag you sixteen hours out from no where to maybe, I stress maybe, be able to fix up a old house and make it into a... What was it? Oh yeah, rent it out to potential customers. It was my older sister this time. Yeah, she's a interior designer. She likes to think that I want to be one too so she volunteers me for things like this. It's kind of a interesting company she has. She does the design work and most of the hands on stuff then the whoever owns it tries to rent it out. Marry, my sister was head banging to her 80's hard rock music, her long brown hair flying as she tapped her fingers hard against the steering weal. I winced as she reached over and cranked up the volume.
  "No... Marry, don't..." I almost groaned.
I leaned over and turned it back down to a more respectable volume that would not burst my tender young eardrums. Marry turned back up louder then before. I turned it down. She turned it up. I turned it off.
  "Marry, can we please listen to something that sounds a little less like a bunch of frogs being strangled?"
The air became tense for a moment. This was a touchy subject in our family. Me and mom preferred the classic style, Bach and such like. Marry and my dad though really went for the dark, scream your head off type of thing. It was a rather tricky subject. One time me and mom conspired together to rip out the old car's radio and CD player to stop the pain. It worked for a while, til Marry crashed into our neighbor's barn and we had to get a new car. That was also kind of awkward, the whole barn business. Marry raised one of her dark eyebrows thoughtfully. I widened my eyes expressively to match her intense face.
  "Please?"
She sighed and waved a hand.
  "Fine, have it your way."
I smiled wickedly, reaching down into my purse as I pulled out one of my albums.
  "It's only fair since you dragged me out here."
Marry raised a finger.
  "Hey, I'm paying you this time."
I put the CD in.
  "Yeah..."
The music began to play. I felt sudden relief and my whole body started to relax. Sweet relief... Marry was talking again, about the house.
  "All the tools and paint and stuff we need was delivered to the house already so when we get there all we need to do is organize it and start working."
I gave her a sidelong glance.
  "Where are we staying?"
  "At the house."
  "Yeah... Good, great."
Marry smiled broadly.
  "I know, right?"
  "Yeah," I answered. "It sounds super awesome."
Marry's attention was suddenly drawn to something on the road.
  "Look, look! That's it, that's it, Jill! See it?"
All I could do was blink.
  "Yeah, I do."
Marry's driving skills had never failed to give me heart attacks, life threatening heart attacks mind you. She swung round, barely stopped then crossed the high way and made a dash for the drive way. God was with us. That semi truck was two inches away from hitting us. Marry drove fearlessly into the driveway and stopped the car. My head flew forward and just grazed the dashboard. Marry was already hopping sprightly out of the car.
  "I can't wait... Oh it looks good."
I felt my forehead.
  "It's alright, I'm okay." I muttered, finding the door handle and pushing it til the door slid open.
I got out. Marry was standing near the west wall of the house, her happy demeanor seemingly gone. I glanced at the house. All I could say for the moment was that it was red. Very, very red. I walked around to where my older sister was standing, seeming stunned. I sidled up to her. She didn't seem to notice. I turned to see was she was staring open mouthed at. My jaw feel too. A gigantic hole in the west wall stood staring at us like a huge black eye. There was only a little wall on that side of the three story house. I ran my fingers through my red hair distractedly.
  "A real fixer upper, huh?"
For once Marry seemed almost speechless.
  "Yeah... I guess so."

Learning and aspiring writer for God's glory,
- J.C.

Being Okay with Okay

As a writer I strive for perfection. I spend hours struggling to come up with the 'right' name for my secondary character and days coming up with perfectly tragic ending to my novel. As a writer I want to run away and hide when I miss a word or a comma in a sentence that was supposed to be  The Turning Point in my plot. So I get frustrated, a lot. The words just don't come out write 70% of the time. But that's okay. If you're a young writer or new to writing fiction, you can't expect to write like someone who's been writing for fifteen years when you've only been writing for four. Improving your craft takes practice. A lot of practice. It also takes commitment. That's a tough one, especially when ten thousand different story ideas are poring out of your mind per second. That's actually a good thing, if you can still keep your focus on the novel at hand. I have a problem with that.... To much genius more out of my head, I need to find the plug. The point is, it's okay to not be perfect. Nobody's perfect. There is no perfect way to write fiction, however, there is a good way and a bad. Work on your craft. Brush up on your character arcs, put a little humor in the life of your protagonist, make sure the antagonist is treated with due respect in your plot. Things like that. If you want to be published work on perfecting your novel, not to perfection of course, but to the best it possibly can be. Who knows? Maybe in heaven all us writers will finally get the chance to write the perfect novel but until then, keep working! Writing is work, and fun, and lots of other things.

Happy writing slash reading!

Learning and aspiring writer for God's glory,
- J.C.