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 85: The reception desk was empty.
The reception desk was empty. Sophie heard lights and voices in the back though. “Hello,” she called tentatively. She heard steps and a man with dark hair, only a few years older than her appeared in the doorway she thought led to back offices.
“Hi, Sophie was it, I’m Jim.”
Sophie stepped forward and smiled relieved that she was in the right place. “Thanks so much for the Saturday meeting,” she said.
He shook her hand. “Not a problem. Why don’t you come on back and we will see what needs to be done.” Sophie nodded and followed Jim back to his office, holding tight to all of her files.
“So you have a regular nine to five pay check sort of job and started the sewing business on the side,” he said as he checked his notes.
“I did and while it was smaller at the start of the year it is growing quite a bit and I want to stay on top of things.”
Jim nodded and together they started to go through Sophie’s files and options. Thoughts of carnivorous numbers dimmed and together they developed a plan for dealing with the government requirements. It was so much less trouble than Sophie thought it was going t be that she nearly sunk into the chair in relief.
“Let me guess,” Jim said with a grin. “You kept putting it off because you were worried?”
“Something like that,” she said. “But it seems to be sorted now.”
“And that is a relief for you.”
“A big one.”
Sophie left with a plan in place and knew exactly how much of her sideline earnings she could spend and what she needed to safe for tax purposes. As she had been setting all of it to the side for tax purposes it really made her feel better to know that she could at least use some of it to restock supplies.
“Which will help me on my paycheck savings,” she told herself as she returned to the car. Sophie put all of her paperwork in the trunk and then slid behind he wheel. She fastened her seatbelt.
“One main worry out of the way,” she told herself as she turned the key in the ignition. “Monay should start settling the work bits as well.”
It was with a great deal of relief that she took herself off to the fabric emporium. While there, Sophie indulged in a few extra purchases along with the restocking of items she knew she was low on. As most of the splurge items were things she was using for the limited edition dressing gowns, she didn’t feel she went too overboard.
As Janine had gone out of townfor the weekend, Sophie decided she wasn’t going to eat out and spent the weekend in her apartment alternating between working on contracted projects and sketching out fantastical designs for potential projects.
As Sophie drew she took a moment to look at some of her more recent designs. Since she started to let go of some of the stress she carried from work, her designs changed. Not only was she designing items for life outside the office, but there was a freedom and an ease in more of her designs. The garments had more flow to them and even the lines she used when sketching looked more relaxed.
‘They say stress is a killer,’ she thought. Somehow, she thought it only applied to old men with bad hearts who smoked cigars, but as she could see the change in her drawings, she knew it probably applied to her as well.
“Who knew,” she thought as she reached for a green pencil.
Ten til Midnight 