I tend to write stories in groups, as in I have specific themes I want to convey, or things I want to say, and it takes me a bit of prose to work it all out. These past several months I’ve been working on three stories, three very different characters in three very different circumstances dealing with things suppressed. I suppose all writers (or at least those with some level of self-awareness) do this. Our selves come through in our stories–what we like, what we don’t like, what we’re screaming to tell the world.

My story, Skeet, just published here by Virgo Venus Press, is one of those stories. I remember when I wrote it, roughly, and it was around the same time I wrote another story (which, ironically enough, was also just published). Both stories were similar in the sense that I was interested in exploring how men specifically deal with emotional despair, trauma, and plain old adversity. Men, just men. That was the main genesis for Skeet.

In brief, Skeet is about Mason and Colby and their afternoon of skeet shooting. Mason’s got some very recent grief he’s working through. Colby’s got his issues, too. Instead of emoting, the men talk around their pain, and in doing so, they share and they connect.

The second inspiration was more left-brained. I really appreciate when a writer shares some technical info about a hobby they enjoy. For instance, I love snowboarding, and I wrote a short story about that. I also like skeet shooting (though I’ve only done it about a dozen times). I wanted to write about it, so I did.

Skeet shooting, or clay pigeons, is a blast, in every sense. Using a shotgun, you shoot orange discs as they fly across the sky. I love that pure moment of focus when the disc is soaring and you have to aim and steady and fire. The world falls away. Past, gone. Future, irrelevant. In Skeet, these two men inhabit that space as they navigate their pain.

There was another inspiration behind this story. I was at a dinner party and ended up talking to a classical musician named Erich Barganier. I looked up his YouTube channel and clicked on one of the videos, one called Flyover Country. It’s a book of poems by John McCarthy read aloud and accompanied by an orchestra. (I assume Erich composed the music, and that John is the guy reading the poems.) I’m not particularly a fan of classical music or poetry, but something about the combo hooked me. The music is jarring. The poetry is powerful and visual. I must have listened to the hourlong piece twenty times.

One specific passage stuck in my mind: the author loses a tooth and plants it in a field expecting flowers to grow. (He’s much more visual and poetic than what I just wrote there.) I thought, what if something else grew instead? Something sinister? Or at least, what if my character believed that? This became the heart of my story.

Funny thing is I didn’t think Skeet would ever find a home. It’s strange and it’s subtle, more pensive than plot-oriented. But it stuck with me. Even to this day.