You guys know by now I’m a huge fan of Writer In Motion. Of course, it doesn’t work for everyone, but I adore the community and the solidarity that writers can find themselves immersed in.

This round, I was iffy on whether or not I would participate. I have such a blast with writing these shorts and I’m trying to get into a groove of practicing my short stories more. And my friends from WIM Round 1 were clamoring for more Space Cows! On the other hand, I also have edits to do, after all, and a couple of beta reads. But I definitely wanted to get more involved, so I volunteered to serve as a forum mod.

Then the prompt dropped. I love it.

Look at this! The dark hillside, the lighted building. The openness of nature, the tiny man-made thing. The rounded shapes all around, and then the straight-sided boxiness of this building.

I immediately had questions. Who would live way out here? Why (beyond the obvious–hello mountainside!)? What else is there that we can’t see? What about that homey, chilling in the evening with nature mood–can I do something with that? What’s behind the house? What’s under the house? Does this fit with Space Cows, or something new?

But I knew I wanted to write something with it.

Spaceships under the mountain entered my head. Also a goat and wineglass picture I’d seen in Slack. And I mean, can I really pass up the chance to poke some fun at Jeni?

I had a hilarious time brainstorming in my writer’s group. So the questions continued. Is there a mountain sized spaceship under the house, and the little tiny house is actually the cupola?

Are the goat and wineglass on this mountain? Yeah, a mashup was inevitable.

And that’s when I knew what I was writing. Did I have a whole plot? No, but I knew the Goat would be the star, and it would be set in the Space Cows universe. I knew the Cow would be part of the story, in some way, but what exactly that way was still was yet to be decided.

Come play along with us! It’s not too late- just write your short story and post it by Friday! It’s only about 1,000 words in your genre of choice! Check out Writer In Motion for more details!