Joining Amber Haines and Emily Wierenga as we seek our written voices. Playing with fiction and the prompt “Sweater”. I am also attempting to play with a slightly longer piece of fiction this November. I will use this character sketch in it and this little piece takes my word count to 4354. It is awful…But I am having fun.
He pulls his favorite cardigan from the closet, pulls it over his vintage t-shirt, his black rim glasses. It was the sweater he bought for that ‘ugly sweater party’ a few years ago and he has since noticed that all theme parties are brief apparitions before a new trend appears. His girlfriends hot pink tights, his moustache. We laugh loudest, rail most extravagantly, just before we fall off every fashion cliff. We scream the loudest at the demons in our own heads.
Martin is a man of strong conviction, though his convictions are subject to change with extravagant frequency and fervor. One day he will fight hard against women in leadership and the very next he will be the most ardent of feminists, astounded that anyone could still hold such archaic beliefs as he had just held the day before. He loves to talk about music and the books he pretends to read but especially what he calls ‘serving the Lord’. To him, the walls between secular and holy are high and solid. To him stacking chairs at church is entirely different from stacking chairs at school. But that was today. Tomorrow he might tell you something entirely different.
He waxes and wanes with the seasons, with the articles he reads, the conversations he has and no man in the history of earth has simultaneously loved and loathed himself so intensely. He is the sort of beautifully broken that women fall in love with from across the room, they stand in line to be the one who can finally save him from himself. The problem is, he turns to sand in their hands, sub atomic particles, he dissolves into the black hole of his narcissism, vanishes from their sight. In the end the women walk away fairly unscathed; somewhere down deep they knew that he had no capacity to love them no matter how much passion he had shown.
one thing blog 
Really like your line about how Martin is a a man of strong conviction, though his convictions are subject to change with extravagant frequency and fervor…makes me think of the person tossed by waves back and forth in the book of James…got a good sense of his character, or lack of…Thanks, Melissa 🙂 for a fun read …
Thanks for stopping Dolly! I always enjoy your place.
I wanted to keep reading more about this person. 🙂
this is great! I love your description of the beautiful and broken man who women instantaneously fall in love with from across the room. Totally know the type. Keep up the great writing!!! (I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month, too, but don’t know if I’ll have the guts to share anything like this on my blog…)
KATI! I hope you share a blurb! I am not looking for anything like publication so fun to share! Hope I get to read some of yours!
Oh I think it lost my comment… Anyway, love the description of the guy esp the bit about how he’s that self-loving and self-hating guy who girls always fall in love with; totally know the type. GREAT writing – keep up the good work. I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month, too, but doubt i’ll have the guts to post any of it on my blog 😉
Hi Melissa
I wonder who this guy is in real live? I can just picture him being incredibly good-looking, sort of an Enrique Iglesias type of look. Yes, usually this sort of guy can make one’s knees a little wobbly! Loved this! I am so glad that you joined us at Amber’s.
Much love and blessings
Mia
(http://hisnlovingembrace.wordpress.com)
Combination of about 14 people I know! But yes…he is the type that makes you both weak and repulsed…
Hi Melissa, finding you through Amber’s. So happy I did. Oh my goodness, this man is so real. Especially love his strong convictions switching one day to the next. The sweater was such a great entry point. I appreciated how you entered right into the heart of him with this story. Great, specific, meaty writing. Way to go on that novel writing, too. 🙂 So cool.
Thanks for stopping by Ashley! I’ve been lurking your blog for awhile…SO god!
He is the sort of beautifully broken that women fall in love with from across the room, they stand in line to be the one who can finally save him from himself. love this line friend. love the way you really dig into his character and learn who he is in the process.