I’m participating in Teachers Write this summer. It’s a sort of writing camp for teachers who want to strengthen their writing skills and “walk the writing walk”. Today’s task was to work on a character sketch and to try to work in visual details that reveal something about the character. I combined it with an earlier task of wondering.  Writing fiction is challenging for me but I’m trying!

She has curly dark brown hair—
bouyant,
like her nature tends to be.
She’s an easy-going optimist.
But I wonder what happens
to a glass-half-full kind of gal
when the glass is cracked
no denying possible?
She sticks to the safe spots-
always has a hair band around her wrist
ready to create order from her unruly hair.
Something to fidget with and snap
when nerves twang.
She knows how to restrain.
I wonder can she let go as well?
Her bumper sticker states:
Well-behaved women rarely make history.
Not a reflection, but an aspiration.
She’s webbed in by etiquette.
I wonder what would happen
if one day she spoke and
truth trumped courtesy.