The Fifteen Minute Novel is an attempt to take a single prompt and use the last sentence written each day as a start for the next day. This year I had several prompts circling around a similar story, so I have combined them. However, the story starts the same way each day, with the last line from the day before and a timer set for fifteen minutes. The hope is to end up with a complete, if very rough draft by the end of the year. Some stories are better than others, but I always learn a whole lot about my own writing when I do this so for me it is not only a nice way to work out a story, but it is a tool for helping my writing get better. And so, we continue this story for 2024 with…
Day 31: Sophie began piling bolts of fabric into her cart.
Sophie began piling bolts of fabric into her cart. When she thought she had enough from that section, she went to the table to have the lengths she needed cut from the bolts, their measurements and costs added to a sheet pinned to the front. The folded lengths of cloth went into her cart and the fabric bolts went to be reshelved.
Sophie took her cart to another aisle, repeating the process again and again with different types of material. In one aisle she found a bolt of peacock blue silk. It shimmered in the light when it moved, much like a peacock, the blues shifting from nearly turquoise to almost black. It felt like a whisper against her skin. The sight and feel of it took her breath away. Sophie didn’t have a project for it but she thought it would serve perfectly as her personal splurge. She simply couldn’t leave it on the shelf. When it was unwrapped from the bolt to be cut, Sophie purchased all of the cloth left on it.
With her personal project taken care of, Sophie went to the notions section, adding thread in colors she was low on, buttons and other necessary elements. When she was through, she paid for her items, trying not to feel the shock of allowing herself to spend so much in one trip.
‘Most of it is going to be sold,’ she told herself trying to justify some of the expense. The items were loaded into her canvas shopping bags and heavily laden, Sophie left the store.
Sophie put her purchases in the trunk and realized she was hungry. ‘I’ll pick up a grocery store salad and get the groceries for the week at the same time, so I don’t have to think about it,” she decided, unwilling to go out for another meal. Sophie headed back towards town and when she reached the grocery, she parked and took the bags that didn’t have any sewing supplies in them into the store.
Shopping was quick and easy and mostly contained items she could put together simply and not worry much about them. She planned to spend most of her time off sewing not cooking grand meals. Her dinner was a large salad with roast chicken which she thought would be excellent after two takeout meals.
‘I think that makes up for breakfast,’ she decided. She took her groceries back to the car and not wanting any condensation to get near the fabric, she put her groceries in the back seat rather than in the trunk with the fabrics.
Back at the apartment it took several tips to ferry first the groceries and then the sewing supplies upstairs. Sophie was very relieved to finally get back to her apartment. The groceries were swiftly put away and she set her sewing supplies to the side as she settled in for dinner. Her stomach was rumbling and more than willing to accept the salad as a lunch and dinner combo. As it was already getting dark outside, Sophie knew she wouldn’t be making a third meal and just going with a hearty morning breakfast.
With dinner complete, Sophie washed her hands, wiped down the table and then, with clean dry hands, she moved to her purchases, settling on the couch and taking each item out of the bag separately. She enjoyed letting her fingers slip over each item, feeling the different textures, cotton, wool, linen, and of course the silk. She left the silk for last.
Ten til Midnight 