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 217: As they experimented, they found some interesting things out.
As they experimented, they found some interesting things out. The first was that if they provided certain elements to the plants then they grew better. Everyone who had ever tried to grow or gather any sort of plants soon realized that different plants liked different kinds of ground to grow in. The people who set up the into farms played around with what each plant needed and found themselves mixing different types of slurries for the plants grown instead of simply providing them ground to grow on.
They experimented with heat and light as well and were able to not only grow what they needed, but to extend the growing seasons so that there was a shorter hunger gap. Anya nodded as she read that, remembering her on times of hunger. There was always a point in the year where the winter stores ran low. Some years were lower than others. Usually by the time that point had been reached, the spring crops were starting to be sown and the world was starting to awaken. Anya well remembered seeing even the wild things of the field all green and growing, but still only buds and shoots, ill-suited for consumption. The poets may talk of the hungry wolves of winter, but for Anya the hungry times were always paired with the tantalizing scent of the new growth all around her. Things that would be food in a month’s time, but had yet to reach that state.
‘Shortening that gap is a good thing,’ she thought as she set her own memories aside and turned back to the page.
In addition to extending the growing time, the people of the mountain staggered their growing times. They didn’t plant everything in the same short span of time. They planted different sections at different times so that something was always coming ripe just as other things were dying off. The concept astounded her. To always have fresh food and not spend a large part of the year living off of only dried beans and things that had been pickled or salt cured sounded more miraculous than anything she had read in the other volumes of magic.
Anya glanced over to the array of foods given to her by Marta. If the house of the Star kept up this pattern of use then she saw no signs of it. When she visited the pantry, she saw only the picked, dried and cured products of earlier month’s gathering. She thought of the dust still coating the inner sanctums of the mountain. That such a miracle could have occurred and then been forgotten was astounding.
‘It seems…wrong,’ she thought.
As well as extending the growing season, Anya found there were other benefits. The indoor growth was not only free from the predations of passing armies, as they were well hidden from the path of their march, but it was apparently hidden from many of the pests as well. Anya found the slurry they used to feed the plants was not a particularly welcome home to the insects that would destroy the crops. So less was lost to their predations as well.
Anya finished the section she was reading and thought about the mountain as a whole. It was, a mountain. Most of the living spaces were carved out of the solid rock. It was meant to be a stronghold in times of war, but it’s weakness was its food supply. ‘Even if their walls and gates held they could be starved out.’ Anya looked at the book. ‘Except that they couldn’t.’ She frowned wondering how exactly the mountain fell to their enemies.
Ten til Midnight 