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 140: Confrontation was not her favorite thing, in fact she usually avoided it.
Confrontation was not her favorite thing, in fact she usually avoided it. ‘Hard to avoid when it steps into the sidewalk in front of you though,’ Sophie thought as she drove home. She found she was a little shaky inside but as she thought about it, she realized she was proud of her responses to Ryan.
While she knew she probably shouldn’t have said anything to anyone it was their own bad behavior that got them into the situations they were facing. ‘Although I am probably not going to mention anything about anyone again.’
When she arrived home, Sophie found that despite feeling okay about her reactions, she couldn’t settle. Instead of a quick meal and a night of design, she ended up ordering a pizza and settling in on the couch for a marathon of home improvement shows. While they really weren’t her usual viewing options tonight she needed the mess to makeover segments to settle. It was nice to see the elements of design when she wasn’t in a headspace to focus on her own.
She had her sketch pad out on the coffee table but realized it would be a mistake to force herself to work on the designs. ‘Besides, a night off now and then isn’t a bad thing,’ she told herself to make it seem more like a choice to not sketch.
By the time she was ready for bed, she mostly packed it away. When she rose the next morning, she found herself a little unsettled and realized that it was the thought of being involved in office gossip that she didn’t like. While she knew she could probably still make ends meet with her sewing business if she had to, she liked her job and didn’t want to risk it for someone else’s bad behavior.
She dressed for the gym and went down for her morning work out. In their habitual greeting Kevin noticed she wasn;t he usual self and frowned.
“Something wrong?” He asked. As he was winding down his workout while Sophie wa just starting he was a bit out of breath.
“Kristen saw me talking to you and Kelly yesterday and made it a thing,” she said. “Its not a big deal but it means that today I will be part of the office gossip.”
“Oh,” he said. His treadmill rolled to a stop. “I hope it isn’t too bad.”
“Shouldn’t be,” Sophie told him. “Its mostly the thought I don’t like.”
“Understand,” he said. “Hopefully it will blow over soon.”
“Hopefully.”
He left and Sophie hoped that everyone would be too busy with evaluations to spend much time in gossip. She pushed herself through her workout and went back upstairs to get ready for work.
‘At least I have left over pizza for dinner tonight so I don’t even have to cook something quick before I get back to my designs,’ she told herself as she headed out to he car.
It was an easy commute with no accidents or delays and Sophie was feeling pretty good about the ay when she arrived. She braced when she entered the office but there was nothing more than pleasant good mornings from those in he office. She started her day hoping she heard the last of it. Her hopes faded when she looked up from her first files of the day to find her supervisor in her office doorway.
Ten til Midnight 