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.
Day 57: When she arrived in the library she pulled the curtains wide letting in the bright sunshine.
When she arrived in the library she pulled the curtains wide letting in the bright sunshine. In full daylight, the library looked more welcoming and less like a forgotten relic. As she already had a book in her room, Anya didn’t search the shelves.
‘I don’t know if reading breaks the rules of solitary contemplation,’ she thought. Instead of looking at the books, Anya concentrated more on the maps. There were the maps that told her of the land around the Star’s House and maps that told her how far she was from Tyrin. As Anya strolled slowly down the long line of framed maps, what struck her the most was how large the world was and how few places she had seen.
In Tyrin the merchants were the most well-travelled and she knew that they stayed on the established routes for the most part. Their tales were full of the dangers of veering off course. While she knew that some of their stories were based on myth and designed to entertain and terrify, she knew that there were dangerous waters, with underground reefs that tore out the hulls of ships. It kept them away from a place called the Dundael Islands. As Anya spotted them on the maps, Anya wondered if the tales of strange things that happened on the Dundael Islands were told as extra incentive to steer clear of the dangerous shoals. There were other dangers at sea and Anya knew that land rotes too were confined. Some made sense a route through the desert lands took a path that followed the watering holes available and necessary to the survival of both man and beast. In the desert though there were stories of the fabulous treasures that lay hidden far off in the sands as well as the deadly fates that awaited those who were foolish enough to search for them.
Looking at the maps Anya could trace out the lines on them where the traders went and still see that there was a vast world which they avoided.
‘Would you like to go?’ The voice inside her head was her own, but as before, the question seemed strange. It was not one that she would normally have. Looking at the maps Anya could admit that she wouldn’t mind seeing more of the world. Of coming back with stories of her own from places the merchants feared to go.
‘But who would I tell the tales to,’ she thought. Anya had the sudden realization of how alone she was. There was no place that she actually fit in, no place where she belonged. No one was expecting her return.
‘If anything my parents might send word for me to send home part of my wages,’ Anya thought. It was a common enough request from one sent to the large manor houses to work and she fully expected her parents would make that request of her once the memory of the payment they received for sending her dimmed in the memory. Anya wondered what they would do when they found she never arrived. Would they search? Would they think she ran off on her own? Would they bother thinking about her at all?
‘And would Lord Mathis search,’ she asked herself. They were the same old questions. Whenever she thought of what she would do next, any attempt at planning came crashing down on those questions. She needed to know if she was to move forward.
Ten til Midnight 