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 254: She placed the basket containing the lace making tools and materials next to her reading chair.
She placed the basket containing the lace making tools and materials next to her reading chair. ‘Soon,’ she told the basket. Soon she would begin to spend a little time each day in lace making so that she could work to repay the House for the supplies she took. That night she slept well but woke feeling as though an expectation was not met. As she ran through her list of items, looking for what she might have forgotten, Anya realized that it was Bendeasa she was missing. Before when she completed a major task, the moon goddess would call her to her temple of dreams and Anya would speak with her. This time, there was no summoning to the mountain.
‘Maybe because I haven’t completed any undertaking, just gathered supplies for one.’ Thinking of her supplies, Anya decided to use her still dusty dress for the day. She promised herself a good washing and a clean drss after her efforts were through, but as she now had to set up the agricultural space she knew it would not be a day for clean gowns. Anya took the book with her down to the garden area once she dressed , ate and was ready to face the day.
The space was flooded with light and because of the supplies she gathered it looked less abandoned and more like it was awaiting use. The cistern that was filled with water abutted her sitting room fire. The fire there would warm the water. The water would then run through pipes around the planters keeping the soil warm. The sun would provide the light and she would provide the effort, using her gathered supplies to create everything else.
Anya filled the waiting troughs with the bags of soil. She gathered from the forgotten storage room. She doubted sitting alone in a store room would make them go bad. She was worried more about the seeds still being willing to germinate after so long being hidden away, but the composted dirt smelled rich with minerals. There were different types and each was labeled not only with the words for what it was blended to grow but had a stenciled picture painted on the rough sacking. While her lessons were teaching her the foreign words, Anya appreciated the images.
The book she was reading showed lists for each bag and gave instruction on how to mix them. Given the number of the bags the store room held and the number of people the interior fields of the mountain were designed to feed, Anya was grateful she would not have to be mixing her own bags for a while. As Anya spilled the dirt into the waiting troughs she again wondered about the down fall of the mountain. While she came across a few references to life within the mountain and the fear of what would happen when the mountain fell, there was nothing written from th perspective of the fallen. Those who were once the children of the moon were silent with regards to their fate.
The victors who wrote the books that followed seemed never in doubt of their victory, at least in print. And with each generation that followed the writings seemed ever more confident in the fact that victory was easy and assured.
But Anya saw the mountain and it’s systems. They still had store rooms full of material for growing crops indoors, safe from invading raiders. If they were adept at using the system then they could have lived forever in the mountain. ‘Especially as it’s hidden spaces were never breached.’
Anya frowned, her thoughts shifting even as she continued her work.
Ten til Midnight 