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 108: “Your mind was different from any other I’ve ever connected with, or attempted to connect with as the case may be.”
“Your mind was different from any other I’ve ever connected with, or attempted to connect with as the case may be.”
Anya wasn’t entirely certain how to respond to that and couldn’t think of a question to ask. Marta let the silence last until she was certain Anya wasn’t going to fill it.
“Well,” she said. If you can keep an eye out for something that requires more plant and animal mater and not specialized tools then hopefully we can find what you need to do a test run to convince yourself. I would ask that you try for something small and manageable. We have no older sorcerers to assist you and well, calling lighting or something overly dramatic like that may be convincing, but it might do more harm than good.”
“I think I can avoid that,” Anya said. “I have no desire to accidentally bun the building down.”
“Excellent news. Then I will leave you until dinner time. You do know your way back to the dining hall?”
“I think I can remember it,” Anya assured her.
“Good then I will see you there.” Marta left, closing the door behind her. Still wondering how her mind differed from those around her, Anya went into the hidden study. The floor stones were mostly dry and the bookshelves she cleaned were completely dried. Anya took one of the clean rags and began wiping down the books, shelving them after they lost their coating of dust. As she worked she wondered who would call lightning in the first place.
“And what would be the point of it?” She asked the empty room. Anya thought about it as she worked. “I assume it would be spectacular so if you were trying for a display of power it would be quite convincing,” she said. She recalled an intense storm where lightning flashed all night and often touched down on the beach. She remembered several ships in port burning and the sand being fused to class in strange twisted shapes. She saw the glass writes collecting it and placing it in areas for display. They handled it almost reverentially and claimed it was some sort of divine inspiration and blessing upon their craft. Many of them made attempts to replicate some of the patterns formed by the lightning in their own work. Some parts of the lightning glass had been sculpted into votive candle holders and placed in the Glass maker’s Guild section of the church. It was there they made offerings.
“So I suppose if you were trying to make lightning glass it would work,” Anya added. She wasn’t certain of the holiness of magician called lightning. As the church didn’t accept that real magicians existed she doubted there was a policy regarding it like there was with true lightning glass.
“I suppose if it is hot enough to fuse sand into glass it could be hot enough to do other things,” Anya decided. She didn’t think it was very practical though. The lightning created interesting shapes but the heat was something that the glass wrights could replicate without calling down lightning. “I suppose the same could be said about the blacksmiths as well. As Anya finished shelving the last of the books she left thoughts of lightning aside and studied the still dusty tools lined up on the work top.
Ten til Midnight 