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 103: Underneath she wrote sullenness and then smugness.
Underneath she wrote sullenness and then smugness. She set the list to the side and turned n her computer. As it booted up, she took out her files for the morning. Sophie set them to the side and took up her pen. Under smugness she wrote, eagerness and industrious.
‘They are things people can feel,’ she decided. “So we are just going to use that as a broad definition of emotion.’ Sophie logged in and thought that if she decided she liked the exercise it might be worth it to put each of the emotions listed on separate pieces of paper so she could pull them more randomly out of a box.
‘But let’s see if it turns out to be something I want to do more than once,’ she decided. That morning she deliberately avoided looking at her ‘optimistic’ designs before heading out to start her day. ‘And I am not looking at them today either.’ She decided.
Sophie thought it might be fun to do an emotion a day for a week or so and then see if she could tell what emotion the designs represented when she looked back on them. ‘See if they actually catch the emotion.’
With that thought in place, Sophie switched not work mode and began her day. She was now in a place where she didn’t need to focus as intently so she decided to risk an Italian podcast. Oddly enough it helped. Between the file input and remembering Italian, she had no thoughts regarding the potential happenings around her. She didn’t hear or even think about gossip. And as such she had a pleasant and productive day.
‘See what happens when you don’t eavesdrop,” she told herself as she got ready to go. Sophie made sure to grab her list of emotions and tuck it into her bag. Over the course of the day several more occurred to her and she added them. She slung her bag to her shoulder and left the office with everyone else.
The elevator was just as chilly and distant as it was the day before and as it descended she wondered if chilly could be considered an emotion. ‘Chill certainly is but that is decidedly different than this.’ She mentally debated emotionally chilliness as a possible add on to her list. She hadn’t reached a decision by the time the elevator doors opened.
Once again everyone went their separate ways. Sophie drove home and once back inside, she added chilliness and chill to her list. Again once she was settled on the couch, she blindly chose an emotion from the list and began sketching designs she thought might fit with it until bed time. With her contracted pieces complete, Sophie thought she had a few days before she had to start on a new set.
Ten til Midnight 