Mr. Flaherty

The topic of the week at FaithWriters is, “Winter (the season).” I slipped into fuzz-brain-mode for a while yesterday (gotta love that creative fuzz), and came up with a character…the first necessary step in my recent goal to develop fiction through focusing on characterization.

It turns out the dreamed-up, never-met-him-before-person this time is named Mr. Flaherty, actually Mr. Kevin Flaherty. He is a widower (his wife’s name was Dana); an older gentleman living in a smallish house with a river rock fireplace and very old and drafty, double-hung windows. I can’t tell you the rest; it would spoil the impact of the finished story – if, that is, you ever have any interest in actually reading the finished story, which I realize may not be the case. Actually, Mr. Flaherty is still in the process of telling ME the story. So of course I can’t tell YOU.

No doubt now you’re daydreaming and fantasizing about Mr. Flaherty. Maybe you’re obsessed with curiosity, and will lay awake all night dreaming up creative what-if scenerios about this man (his name is Irish, by the way)…something about him pacing through his house on a wintry day, snowbound and cabin-fevered, and eating himself into oblivion by consuming a whole package of Oreos…or about him discovering Big Foot’s footprint in a snowdrift in his back yard on New Year’s Day…or about him playing with the neighbor kids in the snow, maybe pulling them on sleds and building a 6’ snow dragon with bulging pickles for eyes…or about him forgetting to close the flu on the fireplace and smoking himself out of the house on a cold, starlit evening…or about him buying wild bird seed in 50 lb. bags since the deer eat most of it before the birds ever get a chance.

In any case, IF you have good leads that should make their way into my story (er, or rather, Mr. Flaherty’s story) you can always let me know (that’s a dare, by the way), and then I can check it out with him (via the fuzz vibes).