The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is an 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 210: ‘No good can come from that.’
‘No good can come from that.’ Anya’s thoughts were heavy as she made her way back to her quarters. She didn’t bother with the fire as she usually did after she returned. She didn’t have her late meal and settle with her reading. Instead, Anya dropped off her blanket and kept her cloak on, moving straight into the room where the circles and Deran waited.
Anya stepped into the circle she thought of as hers. The chair took up most of the space and she edged her feet in front of it, knowing where the circle was placed on the floor without looking. Anya activated the circle with barely a ripple of thought and watched Deran coalesce like bits of light coming together to form a person.
“Ah Anya, have you finished your latest lesson?” Deran had no way to gauge time so he simply thought of each lesson as a day. Their few months of lessons shortened into only a week or so s time for him.
“Not exactly, ”Anya said. “I should finish my reading soon, but something came up.”
“Something to do with energy transfer?”
“No,” Anya replied. At least, I don’t think so.” Anya thought about it and realized it might actually tie into her latest lesson. “It might thought.”
Deran made a chair appear for himself and he sat down. He gestured towards her chair. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“I was following Perov, the watcher Lord Mathis set to find me, with the orb,” Anya began and I was distracted and ended up being brought to the Fairweather Estate.”
“You lost focus and the orb took you to the estate because your thoughts shifted.”
“Yes,” Anya confirmed. “I meant to take a look and then go back and follow Perov after I saw the estate.”
“He was doing something interesting?” he asked. Anya mentioned she was following him and even though she hadn’t found anything that was important he encouraged her to piece together a view of the wider world as that would help her not only in her studies but as she decided how to respond to threats like Lord Mathis.
“He was visiting the house where I lived with my parents before they died. He was trying to gain an audience with the owner,” Anya said. “I was going to go back but while I was looking at the estate a pair of men came. One was my age, Ramel was his name and he was with an older man, his grandfather.”
“And they live at the estate?” Deran asked.
Anya shook her head. “No one lives there,” she told him. “They haven’t for a long time.”
“And yet Lord Mathis considers it of value. Was there anything significant?”
“I don’t know about significant,” Anya said. “But it did look odd.”
“Odd, how?”
Anya described the estate and saw Deran blink in surprise.
“You say the courtyard had a large tree unlike any you have ever seen before?” he asked.
“Yes, growing in the center of the courtyard.”
Deran nodded. “Its leaves, tell me about the leaves,” he asked excitedly.
Ten til Midnight 