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 71: She turned away from the pool.
She turned away from the pool. She felt her own footsteps dragging and decided it was better to go on down to bed. She rubbed a hand over her eyes and saw red and yellow spots dance.
‘I should remember not to touch things that magicians have used,’ she decided. Anya yawned wide enough to hear her jaw creak. The wind picked up and she was clouds scudding across the moon. Anya shivered. There was a damp chill on the wind. Back in Tyrin she would have said rain was on the way. Here she suspected it would be snow. Not wanting to fall asleep on this icy stone platform, Anya tried to hurry her steps.
‘It must be really late,’ she thought. The last time she had been this tired was when she fled the tower, spending the night working her way through the tunnels and climbing back up into the ruins and then walking all day to put some distance between herself and whatever Lord Mathis had planned.
‘which was either death by starvation or a part in his plan,’ she thought. She reached the stairs and slowly descended. While there was light at the bottom, showing that a lit lantern had been left for her, they light cast long shadows up the staircase, the flickering flame behind the protective glassmaking the stairs look as though they were moving. She placed a palm flat against the wall so that she wouldn’t slip and go tumbling. She leaned her wait more heavily on the wall as she walked so that if she missed a step she might be able to catch herself. She reached the bottom of the stairs without mishap. She started to bend down to pick up the lantern and felt a little dizzy. She decided keeping her weight on the wall wasn’t a bad idea. Her hand slid down the wall as she bend. As her hand closed over the cool metal handle, Anya heard a click and felt the wall under her hand shift, then suddenly it wasn’t there and she was tumbling sideways.
The fall was not a long one, but she hit the ground hard enough to knock her breath out of her body. Somehow she managed to keep a hold of the lamp and despite the ache of her hip bone and her ribs where they connected with the floor, she wasn’t hurt. Anya slowly stood up and looked around. She Lifted the lantern high, pleased beyond measure to have it with her. She looked behind her and saw that the wall swung shut again. There were two steps leading up to the space. She walked over and discovered that if she pressed the wall again, it would tilt open and let her back onto the stairs.
Confident she was not trapped, Anya turned away from the door to look at the secret space she tumbled into. It was clear it had not been in use for a long time. There were a few shelves of books against the wall with dust thickly coating their spines.
Ten til Midnight 