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 45: Now that her need for high energy was over, Sophie let the play lists Janine made for her go.
Now that her need for high energy was over, Sophie let the play lists Janine made for her go. While her language skills progressed significantly during her month off, there were still words she needed to look up and she didn’t feel comfortable doing so while working. Instead she concentrated on English language fashion based podcasts.
As Kristen huffed on the other side of the cubicle wall, Sophie turned the volume up on her podcast and pretended she knew nothing. Tuesday slipped into Wednesday and then Thursday with no real issues. Sophie was able to put in a full day’s work concentrating on only her projects and leave only a few minutes late. It gave her plenty of time to work on her own things in the evening and she became confident that she would be able to meet the order Kristen gave her and accept a new contract. She didn’t know if the new one would be for three months as well or longer, but as more days slipped by without her having to work late, Sophie was confident she could meet the orders.
Friday, around mid morning, Mr. Ever’s stopped by. She could see the files in his hand and knew there by the numerical coding on them she could see that while a couple were from his own work load, others were from Carrie, Kristen and even Ryan’s projects.
“Ah Sophia, so glad to see you settling back in,” Mr. Ever’s began. He started to lift the hand with the files in it. “I was wondering…” he began.
“I’m sorry Mr. Evers,” Sophie began. “But I can’t take on any additional projects at the moment. He glanced over at her stack of folders. It was significantly lower than on previous days, but Sophie deliberately kept some of the files she completed earlier in the week out so that it would look like more. In addition, she had the project sent out from the top floor open in front of her.
“It really is only a small thing,” he continued. She could tell from the codings that none of the projects were small and each one of them would individually cause her to work late.
“I am sorry, but I can’t,” she told him. She quivered inside at telling her supervisor no but she had gotten used to having her evenings free and as she suspected that the files in his stack were the ones that the others already tried to pass off to her, she had no intention of taking them.
“Oh,” he said. He looked nearly as surprised by her rejection as Ryan had been. “But really we do need you to be a team player on this and I have every confidence…”
“I am sorry, Mr. Evers. I am already working on the new database that was sent down,” she said. “You were cc’d on the e-mail?”
“Oh yes,” he replied. “I forgot about that. It is important.” He frowned. “I didn’t realize it would take up so much of your time.”
Sophie wondered if he would try to get her pulled from the project.
Ten til Midnight 