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 32: She left the silk for last.
She left the silk for last. Sophie tilted the length of silk this way and that, marveling at how the colors shifted and letting potential designs flit through her mind. She didn’t know quite yet what she wanted to do with the silk, but she knew after some thought she would find the perfect design for it. For now, she carefully folded it and set it to the side.
The other items also were refolded and taken to her sewing room where they could wait their turn to be turned into something.
“I am so glad I took my inventory last weekend,” she told herself surveying her neatly ordered supplies. It had been a mess after she completed her trousers the weekend before and she knew that she would have had to take time out to sort through and order before beginning a project. “Now I don’t have to.”
With all of her new items put away, Sophie took a notebook to the couch and began to plan out her month off. She was accustomed to working on projects during the weekend or after work when she didn’t get home too late. She wasn’t entirely sure what she could accomplish given a long string of uninterrupted days in which to work. ‘But if I am to take the contract then I need to figure out my time a little better so I can work around it once I am back in the office.
At the thought of the office, Sophie frowned. If no one was taking up her work while she was gone then she knew it was going to pile up. She knew that to get through it in a timely manner and not cause issues for other departments she was going to have to stay late just to get through her own work.
“I’ll also have to be more forceful in rejecting other’s projects.” Sophie nodded to herself thinking about how others not only asked her but actually left folders on her desk assuming she would do them.
‘Which I did.’ Sophie took a deep breath. She had always been a team player but this week more than any other showed her that she was not par of a team. “And if they leave folders on my desk then when they leave at lunch I will just return them to their desks for them to complete. What are they going to do complain that I won’t do their work?”
Sophie laughed and shook her head. It was a nice idea, she would just have to make herself do it. She would have to stop being polite when people stopped by her desk and simply say no directly instead of justifying not doing their work because she was busy with her own. Sophie let her smile fall. She was not a confrontational person.
“But I don’t want to be taken advantage of.” Deciding that was enough of a plan for work and that she didn’t need to think about it for a month, Sophie set it to the side. She knew she would be working late to catch up when she returned, so her schedule needed to be well thought out before that happened. She would not have time to spare until she caught herself up.
“At least it is working late with my own projects,” she decided. Office thoughts kept creeping in despite her best efforts ad she turned on the television, navigating to a streaming site and putting on a nature documentary instead of a textile based one as she worked out her schedule.
After a time, the schedule was finished, and she began sketching.
Ten til Midnight 