Joe Fassler at Lit Hub:
Years ago, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I found myself writing about flight. It started as just a few paragraphs, a bit of spontaneous fiction jotted down in a notebook: a man stood on the roof of a barn, wearing a pair of enormous wings built from wood and cloth. His friend on the ground—the narrator—looked on nervously, ready to call an ambulance. And then the man jumped. Somehow, he flew.
I still remember the surprise I felt as the scene spilled down the page. The thrill of liftoff, a human body lofted in midair. The whole thing only lasted a minute before the man swooned back to earth in a shuddering crash. He was safe, he’d done it. Hoarse, joyful shouts echoed around the field.
That scene became the seed of my novel, The Sky Was Ours, which has a similar pair of handmade wings at its center.
more here.