A last-minute decision to write a story I was thinking about while walking to the post office has manifested in this. A new story!

Inspired by the passion some of the writers I’m talking to seem to have for shorter stories, I checked out a few of the submissions calls for shorter stories than what I usually write, and I really liked one market’s mission statement about what kinds of relationships they want to publish stories about. I can write about that, I thought.

So I did.

I am typically more of a discover-it-as-you-go writer (“a pantser,” as we are colloquially called), but I’ve found on shorter stories that the concept more or less IS the plot, and if you know the point you want to make, the journey to get there is a straight line. I’m definitely more used to figuring out what my characters want to say by letting them say it. This is not better or worse, but it is less comfortable.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I only had a couple “pantser” moments when things I didn’t intend to click DID click together, but mostly it was a pretty intentionally written story and I enjoyed seeing a story be FINISHED at less than 2,000 words.

“Home to the Sky” happens in a strange world where when kids become adults, their parents select a sort of magical token for them. A woman’s son is on the brink of this and she wants to give him the token he’s asked for, but the boy’s father wants him to have something else. The resolution to this problem also offers a revelation about the mother and father’s relationship.

Still a little creeped out by these tiny word counts.