List five personality flaws you see in yourself. Pick a flaw. Then, give this flaw to a fictional character, who may or may not be similar to yourself. Show the flaw in action.
Flaws:
- Bossy
- A bit of a know-it-all
- Tendency to start new projects before finishing old ones
- Messy
- Bad at maintaining relationships/staying in touch
She couldn't force the closet door closed. It moaned as she leaned into it with her shoulder and hip, and she wondered if this might be the point when the cheap hinges would finally fail. Her newest addition to the unruly pile - which threatened to envelop the clothes rod in the near future - was the start of a quilt. Squares of fabric had been traced and cut out, some of them pinned together, front-sides facing, and then set aside until today, when she folded and stacked them tightly inside a brown Fresh Grocer bag along with their corresponding spools of thread. She ignored the rip that was forming as the bag strained around her abandoned intentions.
She had found the quilt's log-cabin-style pattern earlier that year, on one of the dog-eared pages of the book that sat, well-used, for years on the shelf above her mother's craft table. It was the one thing she admitted to her siblings that she wanted. She let the rest be packed into boxes and neatly stored in the cold garage until her father could find the time, could gather the energy to tote her mother's belongings across town to the Goodwill, the elementary school, the library. Drop-off bins and earnest volunteers could offer, in exchange for these goods, the inferred assurance that his wife's death had not been, in fact, simply a waste.
Finally relenting, she pulled her nightstand over as a blockade. There was not time to deal with the jumbled mountain today. Organizing and cataloging and prioritizing were all on a mental list titled "Someday." Her thoughts jumped instead to the bags hanging on the coat rack in the hall, her morning's haul from the craft shop downtown. She had considered resisting, told herself she could go a few blocks out of her way on the walk to Dr. Wilson's office, avoiding the wafting scents of aromatic candles, freshly dyed fabrics, and autumnal potpourri. But she gave in. The promise of a new start, a fresh pattern, the shining possibilities ensconced in a project's beginning - her willpower was no match. So, the pile in her closet continues to grow, and she carefully sidesteps the nagging question in the back of her mind: what would her mother, always so meticulous and measured and intentional, think of this backlog?
Sitting on the hallway floor now, her left hand flips through the pattern book's ragged pages, as her right caresses the crisp fold of the fabric at her side. It is cotton, hand-dyed a cool, neutral gray. Calming and easy, promising distraction, a spark of interest. She wonders how long it will hold her.
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