Morning all. Today the Fifteen Minute Novel continues. It was taken from one of the writing prompts done previously and then expanded out. I gave it only a loose outline to sort of have a frame work as I get started. The goal is to work on a story idea and to see how much of the full story I can find (in a very rough first draft) by only writing fifteen minutes a day on the story. It is coming along at a snails pace and I realized there are spots that will need to be expanded as I go back for a re write and other parts that will need to be trimmed down. But it is a first draft. All of that comes in the edit. Which is really hard to remember. Working on this makes me realize how much I edit as I go during my first drafts. Here I make notes to the side using the comments feature leaving little post it notes where I know I need to add. Those are done outside the fifteen minutes. And I try to keep them to a minimum but sometimes I can’t help myself. Not editing is far more frustrating than I thought it would be, especially with this story for some reason…But let’s get on with today’s writing…
Day 132: Gwen enjoyed spending time with him.
Gwen enjoyed spending time with him. Michael was fun and they had always been friends. There was nothing more between them, there never had been. And Gwen was fine with friendship. At some point she thought she would be ready to start dating again, but as she had only ever dated Toby she wasn’t quite ready to move forward with that aspect of her life just yet.
Michael seemed lonely and he enjoyed their trips. She wondered why he had never explored anything much but wasn’t sure she should ask. He seemed like he didn’t like to go to new places alone, but was more than willing to try them out if he had someone with him. In fact he had a list of places he never quite got around to visiting.
Despite spending every summer here for years, he hadn’t actually gotten to visit all that many places. Gwen suspected he arrived each summer and then was left alone in the apartment until it was time to send him back to Westport. It wasn;t something he wanted to talk about so she didn’t pry.
As the time drew near for the first social event that her grandmother put on the calendar, Michael mentioned that he would be attending as well. His step mother suggested bringing him along.
“She felt a bit sour about it actually,” Michael said as they were walking through the park. They had been to see a movie earlier and neither had any place in particular they needed to be. So they ambled through the park trying to decide if there was someplace else they wanted to go or if they were calling it a day.
“Sour about you going?” she asked. “Why?”
“Because when she called to make sure I had a ticket the woman made sure it was me and not the steps that was going. Apparently they attended one of the events and did some damage.”
Gwen remembered her grandmother mentioning something about that and nodded. “So she did not like that they would let you in because you hadn’t caused damage?”
“Something like that,” Michael admitted.
“Is it going to cause you trouble?”
Michael shrugged. “It irritates her, but I don’t think she’ll hold it against me. Besides, by the time the steps get back from summer camp she will have forgotten it entirely. And I might not be here.”
“Planning on going somewhere?” Gwen asked. She knew that her plans started with a summer with her grandparents but might go to up to a year. She knew Michael probably had other plans but it would be noise to have him here while she was here. She didn’t say that though. She didn’t want to appear selfish, or needy.
Ten til Midnight 