Sky Chase – The story of a short story

My short story Sky Chase has just been published in the anthology The Heart Will Find a Way. For the process-curious of you who like to know how the sausage is made, here is how it was for this piece.

Do you listen to the Pop Culture Parenting podcast? If you have kids or work with them, then you really should. It’s hosted by Dr Billy Garvey, a developmental paediatrician and Nick McCormack, a ‘developing parent’. These two are such great humans.  They are compassionate and curious and Dr Billy is exactly who you’d want to be your clinician. He’s such an advocate, so measured and thoughtful and reassuring but I digress.

The premise per episode is that they have a topic and pick a clip from a movie, then Billy speaks to it and the deeper dynamics going on. People can send in questions during the following week about the topic, for example resilience in kids, and he answers the questions. They also talk about their own parenting and every week they offer up a ‘Winslow’ for good parenting and a ‘Griswald’ for something they could’ve done better.

My story was inspired by one of Nick’s Winslows. He has two young daughters and one Sunday morning he gets them out of the house early so his partner can sleep. They’re in the car with no real direction and then they see some hot air balloons and just follow them wherever they go. You can listen to him tell it in Episode 25 (you’ll find it at 12 minutes 30 seconds).

My stories often start as an image. I see something and think, I want that in a story. I don’t know the hows or whys but I just need that image. I thought this image was so beautiful, the silent early-morning city, the air balloons floating and a car with three people and no direction suddenly finding one.

I keep a bit of a writing log, of what I’ve been working on, the date, how many words and how many minutes I was at it. I don’t know why. Sometimes it makes me feel good that I’m regularly sitting down. Other times it makes me feel pretty rubbish about how long it’s been since my last entry. I think it was a hangover from freelancing and logging words and minutes and working out where my hourly rate sat. It’s also interesting to see how some pieces are just pure labour and I can only squeeze out a few hundred words in an hour or two and others just flow.

According to the log, I wrote the Sky Chase draft in 3 sittings. 20 minutes – 370 words. Another 50 minutes took me to 1170 words. And 35 more minutes to finish the draft at 1670 words. So, it’s quite a short short story and was quicker to write than usual. And then I edited it in 3 40-minute sessions.

It was a lucky little piece that almost didn’t get submitted to the one call out and was then accepted.

The Heart Will Find a Way anthology is a memoir and fiction collection of 41 stories of heartache, heartbreak and heartbalm edited by Anjenette Fennell, Anne-marie Taplin and Megan Close Zavala.

I had a chat on ABC Breakfast with Jenny and Dan on Valentine’s Day about the book, my story and being a writer. You can hear the episode (pick it up around the 2 hour 4 minute mark) HERE.

If you’re in Newcastle and you’re looking for a copy, try Maclean’s Booksellers on Beaumont St, Betty Loves Books down at the Station or Harry Hartog Kotara.

For those elsewhere, you can order at your local bookstore with the ISBN (978-0-6455648-7-7) or through Amazon and Booktopia.

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