Welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Each morning I spend fifteen minutes writing on a singular story line. Each morning starts with the last line of the previous day. The goal is to get a (very) rough draft out of the simple story idea and to avoid letting the story idea languish in limbo forever, actually writing it out. This is the third year I have done this writing experiment and each year I learn just a little bit about myself and the way I write as well as creating a framework for the story. But without further ado…
, Day 81: He winked at Gwen.
He winked at Gwen. Gwen smiled back. Conversation remained light and Margaret talked of her day mentioning people Gwen didn’t know, some of whom she would be introduced to at the end of the month when there was a dinner they would all be attending. The dress Gwen would wear to the dinner was already hanging in her closet. The event seemed liked some sort of charity function and Gwen decided to look up the charity after dinner so she would at least be knowledgeable about the event.
After dinner, it was Gwen’s turn to wash the dishes. While washing dishes was never her favorite chore, she was glad that drying them and putting them away at least gave her the opportunity to see where things went in the cupboards in case she needed to find them again.
As she took care of the dishes her grandfather tidied the kitchen and then joined Margaret in the living room. Gwen left them to relax and went into her room. There she found a laundry hamper she hadn’t seen when she went into change quickly before dinner. Gwen took the opportunity to add all of the clothing she needed to wash to the bin and station it where it could collect further clothing. She then washed her face to remove the makeup she put on to go to her grandfather’s office, and brushed her teeth.
Knowing she would shower and wash her hair after her morning run, Gwen then left the bathroom and settled herself on the bed with her lap top. She looked up the charity that her grandparents mentioned and took in the basics of what they did. It seemed to deal with getting clean water to places where there wasn’t clean water. A lot of the information was a bit technical. Gwen slowly worked her way through it. She didn’t want to embarrass anyone by not knowing what was going on. After the technical aspects of how the charity was striving to get clean water to places on a permanent basis, the details of the locations were a breeze to flip through. Each of the places had its own details and Gwen decided to think of them as flash cards before a test. She chose one from the list and worked through the details. She figured there was enough time before the event for her to make it through all of the places the charity worked and to learn the details if she took one each night.
She ran through the details of the chosen location and thought she could remember them.
‘Tomorrow I’ll see what stuck, read through it again and start on the second,’ she promised herself. Gwen was determined not to be an embarrassment by not knowing what was going on.
After that Gwen checked into her e-mail account. There were several e-mails from Lisa which Gwen decided to ignore. She didn’t delete them, but she didn’t open them either. They came in after she was blocked on text and Gwen thought this was Lisa’s way around the block.
There was one message from her father and she clicked on it. The e-mail was short and to the point. He and Sharron were separated and she was leaving the house. A divorce was imminent. It had been coming for a long time and was nt in any way her fault.
Gwen shook her head. It was mostly the same information her grandmother gave her. ‘With the addition of the lack of blame. I wonder if that is because of the dress?’
Ten til Midnight 