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 135: The thought was a comfort. With potential positions in mind, as the days slipped by Anya started to branch out in her reading, delving into the books she thought of as Guild secrets.
The thought was a comfort. With potential positions in mind, as the days slipped by Anya started to branch out in her reading, delving into the books she thought of as Guild secrets. She was certain that the knowledge of herbs, plants and how to use both would stand her in good stead. She was less certain about the books of guild secrets. They weren’t labeled as such but as she knew that some of the volumes contained information that the guild wanted to keep to themselves so they could preserve the prestige of their trade, Anya was at first unsure if reading them would be helpful or not.
‘I could be in trouble for even knowing some of these things,’ she thought before reaching for the books. Then she realized that she didn’t have the skills to actually employ the knowledge. Knowing how someone made glass a specific shade of blue was one thing. Having the physical ability to actually work the glass was another thing.
No matter how much she learned from the books here, she knew she didn’t have the basic skills to be a glasswright, or a blacksmith or any of the other trades represented. ‘The books aren’t even designed for that. The books were more instructions someone would pass on to a guildsman in order to get them to create the item needed. The authors didn’t expect the reader to be making the items themselves.
The thought settled her. Anya smiled as she thought of herself going to the village blacksmith and specifically detailing how she wanted a tool made. She could almost picture the look on his face at her detailed request for specific metals. What she couldn’t see was herself actually asking for the tool to be made.
‘But I do have several of each tool I’ve found mentioned,’ Anya thought. “But it is nice to know what goes into the tools.’
She settled into her reading chair and wrapped a blanket around herself. There was a hot mug of tea beside her as well. Winter settled in and the snows were piled high. When Marta left her things they were now wrapped in waterproofed cloth and pushed far into the shadows beneath the stone basin so that they would not be buried in the accumulation. Even then, when Anya retrieved the items they were usually frozen solid and needed to be thawed out before they could be consumed.
Today when she looked, she could see that the snow was falling in thick wet flakes. It insulated the place from sound and made her feel as though she was trapped in a cocoon. When she walked through the hidden spaces to reach the orb, Anya noticed that all of the rooms she passed had shaken off their dust and decay, returning to life and readied for use.
Despite her fears about the main portion of the House changing and those changes being noticed, the changes remained in the hidden areas. They started stretching back further into the hidden zones deeper into the mountain. If they would finally spill out into the occupied spaces after they completed the hidden sections Anya still couldn’t say. However she calculated the time it took for the magic of the mountain to repair the spaces it touched and realized that it would still be working in them when the new season opened up.
Despite the heavy snows outside, Anya found her thoughts turning more and more to spring and what she would do when it arrived.
Ten til Midnight 