The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Wednesday, January 5th: Day 3: In fact, Anya suspected that once her younger sister was old enough to look after the younger ones, she would take her place in the laundry working alongside her mother as her older sisters did before they were married.
In fact, Anya suspected that once her younger sister was old enough to look after the younger ones, she would take her place in the laundry working alongside her mother as her older sisters did before they were married. It was how they earned their dowries and were able to secure good matches. Anya knew that her parents tried to give them the best start they could. Anya was pleased she received such treatment even if she was not born from the family at all. She and her two older sisters were in fact adopted in after their parents were killed by the wasting disease. Their father was the brother to the man she thought of as father.
She was a babe in arms, barely a few months old when they were sent away to keep them from contamination. Anya remembered little of her parents. This was her family and her home. It was all she knew. Anya knew that Kissa and Denya complained that half of their wages went towards the apprenticeships bought for the boys thus forcing them to work longer at the laundry than they wanted to raise their dowries, but they were married and settled now.
Anya had her own fears in that direction as well. There were five younger children. Two girls and three boys. She knew the family would want the other boys to have just as good a start in life as the older boys. She wondered how long such fees would extend her time in the laundry. Such thoughts consumed her as she walked home with her buckets of water that day. She dismissed the man in the village square as an irrelevant outsider with nothing whatsoever to do with her. Anya never realized he would have more importance in her life than the village laundry.
In the darkness under the tower Anya stepped into the cold water. There was a stream that ran through the center of the tunnel. At the moment it was as deep as her knees. It caused her skirt to swell around her and petticoats to become saturated and sink, wrapping around her legs. If she stood in the center of the tunnel, Anya could stretch out her hands to either side and touch the tips of her longest fingers to the tunnel walls. They felt rough and scaly beneath her fingertips. Anya kept her fingers touching the walls.
If the water stayed at this depth then she would be fine, providing she could find a way out of the tunnels. Refusing to give into the fear that wanted to rise, Anya concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, searching for hidden obstacles with her foot before trusting her weight to it. She did not want to find herself stepping into an unseen branch of the tunnel. In the darkness below the tower there was no light and as she opened her eyes wide she could only see the sparks of light flashing around her as her eyes tried to see something in the darkness.
Again panic threatened to rise and she turned her thoughts back to that last day in Tyrin. She did her chores and made certain the younger children were tended to as was her duty.
Ten til Midnight 