shipmaker.

i started working on this tonight, based on an idea i thought about when i was trying to help a friend write a poem. i'm going to see how far i can take this, and see if i can even turn it in for a creative writing contest. i'm concerned with the fact that i am writing as a woman, with a male character. i just want to make sure i appropriately capture the male psyche. any thoughts are appreciated. but do note, i am NOT done with this. this is just the first 4 paragraphs of what will definitely be a longer work. this is basically alllll exposition....

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Walter Hinkle lived a simple life. Every morning the sun crept through his drapes and rested on his eyelids, bringing him out of a light sleep. Walter never fell into a deep sleep; any ray of light, or creak in the house, could wake him. He needed complete darkness and eerie silence to drift off.

Walter lived off a disability check that he started getting years ago. He found out at the age of 39 that he had severe carpal tunnel, was developing bone crippling arthritis, and that he could not continue work. He had built houses, starting at the age of 18, right out of high school. He'd never wanted to go to college. Walter's dad worked with his hands, Walter worked with his hands. He thought a lot, but never felt like thinking alone should earn a man his keep. He needed to have a craft. He needed to feel like he could hold something for long enough and it become beautiful. When he realized he could no longer hold two-by-fours for as long as it took to watch them become beautiful homes, he needed another craft.

Walter never married, and felt himself to be a hollow man. He didn't blame himself; he didn't cry himself to sleep. Long ago he had chalked it up to providence and left it at that. He thought too much, his bones were breaking underneath him, and he had little sense of humor. These were truths of his being he could not shake. There came a day when he decided that he was better off alone, because the only graces he had ever offered, he offered to himself. He had no reason to be concerned with romance. He concerned himself with the work of his hands. He had accepted and made the most of this life, a life he was content with.

He started to make small ships. He collected twigs from his yard and larger branches that fell from the oak by the tool shed. These he carved into being the hull of the boat. He looked at thrift stores and bought old, yellow paged books that he ripped apart and used to make the sails. Every sail he covered in words from books he'd never read. Every now and then he'd do a double take on the sail of a ship, seeing words he recognized. Walter wasn't a reader, so he never understood how he would see words he knew. Later he'd notice a book of sonnets by Shakespeare, or early poetry by Tennyson sitting in the trash, gutted of pages, and it would make sense to him. Everyone quoted them, he couldn't avoid knowing their works. He never looked at the titles of books before he tore into them.