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 150: “Thanks for the offer,” Gwen said. “But I have other plans. Maybe some other time.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Gwen said. “But I have other plans. Maybe some other time.”
“Come on, you can ditch your other plans,” one of the other guys said. She couldn’t remember hearing his name before but he had been at the event the night before and scowled at her from across the room as though she was an invading Visigoth. “Who’s gonna know?”
“I would as they are plans I made,” Gwen said. “So maybe some other time.”
“That’s cool,” Kelly said. “I’m sure your other plans are important.”
“Yeah,” Gwen said. “They are. I’ll see you next class.”
“Yeah, okay then.”
Gwen walked towards the car and got in. She closed the door and fastened her seatbelt. She tried not to feel relief as the car pulled away. She wasn’t quite sure why Kelly and the others asked her to join them.
“Making friends?” Sebastian asked.
“I don’t think so,” Gwen replied. She explained what was going on.
He smiled. “They are people who are used to other people wanting to be friends with them because of their families,” Sebastian pointed out. “When they offered, they expected you to jump at the chance. Since you didn’t they will find that interesting.”
“Interesting as in they will ask me to go out with them after every class?” Gwen asked.
“Maybe, especially if you keep turning them down. Which I am guessing you will.” He looked in the rearview mirror.
Gwen nodded. “I’m trying to only make friends with people who actually want to be my friend,” Gwen said. “They only want to be friends because of my grandparents.” She thought of Alan and the others who ran with her in the morning.
“I already have people that I talk to who only talk to be because of my grandfather and they are way nicer, even if they aren’t really friends either.”
“You have a collection of not really friends?” Sebastian asked.
“In the morning I train for marathon running with a group from my grandfather’s office. They are nice because of him, and I guess maybe because I’d run in the marathon under the company name with them, but we don’t hang out and all of us are fine with that.”
“I could see that.”
“I hang out with the people from my baking class. And Michael. They all like me because I am me.”
“It is good to know the difference,” Sebastian said. “Its a lesson it took me a long time to learn.”
“Well with Lisa and Toby I learned it pretty quickly,” Gwen said. They were stopped at a light. Traffic was heavy today, heavier than usual. “Did my delay talking to the others cause us to be late or is something going on.”
“We have missed the sweet spot for traffic,” Sebastian told her. “Usually, we leave at exactly the right time to skate through ahead of the evening crush.”
“Sorry about that,” Gwen said.
“No problem,” Sebastian said. “So who are Toby and Lisa?”
Ten til Midnight 