My brain just won't stop...I started the night determined to finish a months-overdue Morelia chapter. This is what came out of my keyboard...

For the record, this was not for TIP. This session was for the other new story that's coming up in a few months, the tentatively-titled Rescue Me. And yes, this actually happened, but with a bit more colorful language and no actual bleach because, you know, health and safety.

In Which Sheep Do Awkward Things

It was a beautiful night - clear and crisp, the perfect preview of autumn weather to come. The small apartment that will be our setting for this short tale smelt of spices and apples, and pumpkin muffins, freshly baked, were cooling in the kitchen. 'Twas the most pleasant night in a several months.

And yet the peace of autumn spices and moonlit windows is broken by a strange utterance...

"Oh my sweet baby Spartans, they will NOT have sexual relations with sheep!"

We return once more to our strange author, who sits enthroned on her unmade bed with a solitary notebook in her lap and a new story-boarding companion perched beside her.

"I mean, at least I didn't say pigs," answers this new companion, looking very un-ashamed of himself.

The author throws her half-chewed pencil at him. "Oh so now we're talking about pigs? Great, we'll just throw in a few cows and horses for good measure, if you're determined to have farm animals in the story!" The author rubs her temples and wishes very much for a pumpkin muffin. "How did we get here from 'Okay, so she's screwing Caspian'?"

The companion shrugs. "Well, you have to admit it's original." He takes a healthy swig of a red Merlot, and the only reason the author does not strike it from his hand is because the red wine would stain her carpets horribly.

"All right, from now on no drinking and planning. It just isn't working for me."

"You could almost do a dissertation on that!" Our writer's companion, apparently, just doesn't know when to shut his mouth. "Think about it! Asking a professor about primary sources on goat-relations would be legendary."

The author's head falls forward onto the notebook in her lap and she groans. Words fail her, and now the only picture she has in her mind is of far too many goats in much too awkward situations. Though she has been known to be a bit...short-tempered with her characters, surely she doesn't deserve this? Dear, sweet, spunky Adelina definitely doesn't deserve to be pictured in such strange circumstances.

"That's it," the author moans. "I need to bleach my brain."

One would think that perhaps the situation would improve from there. After all, how much worse could such a conversation get? Well, dear reader, for the most part it did improve. But as wine is wont to do, the Merlot flowed liberally from its bottle, and after the strange discussion of sheep and even stranger acts the author and her companion were once more derailed from their plotting and planning.

"Seriously though, she shouldn't go. She's literally useless with anything sharp," the author says, tapping her pen against her knee.

Her companion, grinning like a fool from the wine she has so generously bestowed, winks a most suggestive wink. Said wink earns him a smack of the notebook upon his arm.

"No," the author grumbles. "You stop all that right now. And besides that isn't sharp."

The plotting companion swirls his wine in his cup and twirls an imaginary mustache.

The author grumbles. "Seriously now, what the blasted bloody booger is she doing while the rest of them are trouncing off to Miraz's castle? Bonding with Lucy? Meeting some Narnians? Swinging a sword? Tap dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe?"

"How about singing?" says companion, who shall hither more be referred to as the Idea Man.

"Singing?" the author deadpans. "Singing. Like what? Gangnam Style? Maybe some angsty Adele?"

At this point, the Idea Man sets down his mostly-empty wine glass and sits up straight. After a melodramatic clearing of his throat, the Idea Man belts out a verse the author has never heard before.

"I'm up in the castle, you're a dirty asshole!" he chants, for such reasons as the author is not privy to.

This Idea Man can be an odd little beast.

The author massages her forehead, pinching the bridge of her nose when the chanting continues. "That's literally useless. She's not in the castle, remember? And why did you have to bring up dirty assholes minutes after we talked about sheep in compromising positions?"

Amazingly enough, though the author swore she scrubbed her entire head with bleach afterwards, this unusual plotting session bore magnificent fruit, in the form of a truly wonderful outline for one of the author's new stories. And not one sheep was involved, thank the Lion. One can be sure Adelina and Caspian were the most relieved of all.

There you have it, a very weird sneak peek at the other new story lurking about on my hard drive. I can promise there are no questionable scenes with sheep in it.