This story beginning is in response to Queen of the Cape's No Context Challenge Be warned: It is just the beginning of a story.

This was one of my first attempts at discovery writing. What I discovered was that I wrote myself into a corner that I didn't know how to get out of, so as much as I liked what I had written, "Cowsheads" was left languishing on my hard drive for years.

Thanks, Queenie, for giving me a reason to let it see the light of day. :-)

If anyone would like to pick up writing where I left off, I would love to learn what happens next.

As always, all feedback appreciated. :-)

Joy,
Lynn

Interesting premise, Lynn! Unfortunately, I have zero idea of what happens next, so I will politely pass the opportunity to add more to the story to someone else. But I love the way knowing Clark has changed Lois. She's less brash and less full of herself - she's very open to seeing things from a different point of view. And that makes her a better reporter and person. Nice start to a fic.

Great start to a mystery!

Sherlock Holmes has always intrigued me since reading the original stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician before he became a writer. The methods Holmes used and many of the "clues" he discovered in those stories (not the movies) are actually the methods and things that a physician of that time would use to examine a patient. Interviewing the patient for clues in the medical history and a guided exam were about all they had to go on. The stethoscope was invented early in the 1800s, but there would have been few if any simple lab tests. X-rays were in the research phase. And of course anything computerized was in the distant future. Watson should have been the one picking up those clues if not actually solving the case, not waiting for Holmes to explain himself, which I now find ironic and funny.

My muse is hinting there's a plot bunny forming, although right now I don't have a clue about it. She can be rather fickle, so if anyone else has a plot in mind, go for it!

Lynn, thanks for taking up the challenge!

Yeah, mysteries don't seem to lend themselves all that well to the seat-of-pants method. (Am I wrong?) A shame too, because this sounds like it would be one of the better ones.

Thank you all for reading the start of an "unended" mystery.

Queenie, I fear that you are absolutely right, at least for me. I'm glad you liked my first response to your challenge. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to liberate these story pieces.

Cuidadora, I've been a Sherlockian since junior high school, several decades ago. My understanding is that Holmes was patterned after one particular doctor who had been Doyle's teacher. One exercise Doyle related of his teacher was that one day, the teacher brought a powdered substance into the classroom, dipped a finger into it, put his finger in his mouth, and then passed around the powder's container, instructing the class to do likewise. When everyone had done so, he pointed out that the finger he had dipped was not the same one he had put in his mouth, and had he been malicious, his students' lack of observation might have proven lethal to them. I can see how such a teacher would leave quite an impression on young Doyle.

I hope your plot bunny fully forms.

DC, thank you for the compliments. I very much hope someone picks up where I left off. I've love to see what happens when L&C get plopped into this X-Files-ish situation.

Joy,
Lynn