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 83: She blinked in surprise at what she read.
She blinked in surprise at what she read. She knew Michael was spending this summer as he always did at his father’s place. She vaguely recalled hearing that. She had no idea what his plans were beyond that, but she also hadn’t realized his father lived so close to her grandparents.
He apparently knew and sent his address and phone number in case she wanted to get together sometime while they were both in town. Gwen smiled. She never felt more than friendliness towards Michael, but after feeling so cut off from her old life it was nice to have at least one reminder that she wasn’t completely forgotten.
Gwen typed in a quick message. “Still trying to get everything set up here but would like to get together,” she typed. She added her phone number. She wasn’t entirely comfortable adding her grandparent’s address so she left it off. With the message sent, she added Michael’s phone number to her contacts.
Gwen looked at the paper map her grandmother picked up from the front desk and decided that an electronic version might be best. She pulled up a mapping sight and typed in her grandparent’s address and then Michael’s to see how far away he actually was. To her surprise he was located on the other side of the park where she was running in the mornings.
‘So if nothing else I can always meet him in the park.’ She decided. Gwen smiled. She remembered the various venders. Surely at some point they could get coffee or ice cream and it wouldn’t be a problem.
‘My quest to figure things out can’t take every spare second anyway,’ she decided.
Gwen thought about her grandfather’s claim that thinking too hard about things might cause her to spin into a mental twist. ‘He’s right,’ she thought, knowing she had already spun herself into part of one. Since she had the map open, Gwen started looking around the area seeing what businesses lay nearby.
As her grandmother mentioned, there were several art galleries. While Gwen liked art galleries, she wasn’t entirely sure she could spend days on end slowly meandering through them. Those visits seemed like something she might want to space out.
She found there were a few restaurants in the area, a few of which taught cooking classes that someone could sign up for once a month.
‘I think I might want to have more than just the basics down before I delve into cuisine I’ve never heard of,’ Gwen decided. She pulled up a search engine and typed in beginner cooking classes into it. To her surprise there was a long list of options.
Ten til Midnight 