Between My Sheets—Season One: Interlude
When your agent thinks you're crazy and your rescue lamb agrees.
A side note from my tropical island.
A 4-minute read. Pour something divine.
Welcome, you.
This isn’t the first episode of season two.
That episode is still forming—somewhere between three hours of broken sleep, a lamb with strong opinions about my sofa, and a Frenchman currently packing for his flight back to Paris tomorrow morning.
I’m sitting typing this at the kitchen counter—the darkness of night a normal companion—wondering how he’ll get to the airport because this Woolley Nightowl Lamb Chop is not yet ready to be left alone.
The Frenchman and I have been having a debate the last two days about Woolley, our newest rescue baby, and the reason I’ve been sleeping on the sofa for going on three weeks now.
Woolley, in her infinite baby wisdom, has decided I am her mother, her security blanket, her world. And she’s become my personal, uninvited alarm clock.
She will not settle unless I am within arm’s reach—although this week she’s showing some maturity. But when she realizes I’m not within view—she belts out “Maa” in the cutest—cough—loudest possible way.
I’m training myself NOT to immediately react to her every call.
But her need to be close to her mother—even a human substitute—well, that means I’m on the sofa with her on a cushioned doggy bed or in the crate with the door open, beside me.
Closing the crate door is currently NOT an option.
So, the sofa is my new bed. Every night.
And the Frenchman, he sleeps peacefully in our actual bed like a man who has not recently become a lamb mother.
Although he admitted tossing and turning in the AC starting at 2am. Something makes me think he’s missing me already.
Smile.
My solution—entirely reasonable, I thought—was to find Woolley a companion. A boy toy baby goat of her own to bond with.
(No other baby lambs are currently on the island—hence the baby goat option.)
A being similar in size, with four legs and hooves, who could redirect her considerable attachment away from me and back toward her own (kind of) kind.
The Frenchman was not immediately convinced.
But The Frenchman is a bit against this plan as she’s a baby . . . plus the last time we did something crazy like that it really didn’t work out well.
We bought Moo Baah a girlfriend—a white spotted goat—for $25. She arrived much larger than we were told, on a lead she was resisting, and with a feisty attitude that immediately set me into protect-my-Moo-baby mode.
She promptly head-butted him, ate all his food, and pooped everywhere.
He was so scared by this unknown beast he climbed up behind me on a chair and refused to leave until she—thankfully for him—ran away within two hours.
Very expensive two-hour girlfriend.
Well, turns out inflation is a thing with goats too, because a two month old, hornless boy toy goat for Woolley now would cost me $250!
Say what?
I say, hell no . . . at least for now.
But only because Woolley is now currently by my side making the smallest, most adorable pre-sleep baby sounds as I type this and sip a hot brew temporarily forgetting how exhausted I am.
Maybe this attachment is mutual . . .
This is the conversation that started all of this—Between My Sheets, the humming machine, the new front door, the desire for structured ease.
The moment I told my agent I was walking away from $150K ghostwriting projects to (re)build something of my own.
Read it and tell me—was she right to think I’d lost my mind?
Email Subject line: My agent thinks I’m crazy . . .
Email Preview line: What else is new?!
One day I’ll tell you the story of how my agent and I came to be fast-frenemies.It sounds weird to be both friends and enemies with someone who helps me land book deals, but it’s true.
We go way back, back to a day when I was broken and was forced into letting her sell a manuscript I didn’t feel was ready yet.
In her defense, she had my “number” and knew—by the way I spoke, evaded her calls and wrote—that this book, any book of mine, would never be “ready” for publication.
That I’d be a starving artist type with all my literary words found stuffed under my bed upon my departure from this earth.
Not even kidding.
But more on that another time.
For today, I want to share the latest reason she’s New-York-pissed at me and why that reaction proves I’m doing exactly the right thing.
I recently told her I wasn’t taking on any more $150K ghostwriting projects.
I’ve been very selective the last few years, but now, it’s time for a change.
Unless someone’s book idea keeps me up with excitement all night, I’m saying no. More money offered won’t change that—a few have already tried.
Instead, it’s time for a shift, a beat, a change of word-pace.
A moment to write for me, as me. (Which she likes the sound of . . .)
And to help other writers. (Doesn’t like so much.)
While she gets it, my desire to teach, to mentor, to give back—she also hates when I don’t write.
Understandably so, as her income is tied to the words I generated.
But she didn’t push back (yet). Instead, she asked about my plans, half listening to my response while she moved things round on her desk.
I could hear the papers being shuffled. She’s not subtle when she’s about done talking to you.
Her shrill, “—how f*cking much?” had me pulling the smartphone away from my ear.
“$5K.”
“You’re going to coach people 1-on-1 for 90 days for what? $5K? Instead of writing (so-and-so’s) book!?”
Note: Being a professional ghostwriter means not revealing names, especially famous ones. Ever.
“Yep.”
“Have you lost your mind, Jill?”
I had to laugh at her tone. And, heck, maybe I have gone nuts, but I’m trying something new.
And it makes me happy.
A goal to help, to support, to mentor a writer who knows they must write, must do this thing they are called to do.
Gosh, that feels good.
Maybe that writer is you.
Jill “following my word-JOY” Stevens
That email was purple penned when I was mid-ReWrite, an iteration of the guide, the mirror, the path I’m now on.
Before Woolley took over my days—and nights.
Before The Frenchman arrived.
And before I realized I have something even more delicious up my sleeve.
Some decisions look crazy from the outside.
From the inside, they feel like finally coming home.
Just Jill “sofa-sleeping, lamb-mothering, $250-goat-reconsidering” Stevens
💜
P.S. Episode 11 lands next Friday. Season Two begins. May 1st—Moo Baah turns eight—and I’m calling it—the front door opens with structured ease.
P.P.S. Woolley just twitched in her sleep and made a sound that can only be described as a tiny, satisfied moan. I think I’m in love. Scratch that—I know I am.
