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 164: She suspected, that more than anything would help her with this week.
She suspected, that more than anything would help her with this week. Realizing that she was going to more or less be working through lunch if she actually didn’t want to stay late and wanted to catch up, Sophie made an extra run to the grocery and picked up premade shakes for her lunches. At home she put them in the fridge and in the office she left them out so that my the time lunch tims arrived they still had icy bits, but were mostly thawed.
Even though Linda, Petra and the others invited her to lunch, Sophie declined as she was catching up. The others, having so recently come off their own heavier than usual work load, recognized it wasn’t a blow off but a necessity and let her be. Wednesday rolled around and at the end of the day, Sophie realized she would need a little more time if she was going to finish. Weighing her options, Sophie decided to skip her morning workouts and go in early instead of sacrificing her time after work. She figured with two days extra she could do a big push and be in a good spot by the time she met with Elizabeth. She sent an e-mal to her supervisor explaining it and received back an approval message.
Thursday Sophie got into the office well before anyone else and rode up in the silent and still night dark office. It was quiet, a little too quiet and she was happy to put on he ear buds and fill the silence with something. ‘I’ll be happy to see the end of this week,’ she thought.
Most of her post work sketches were more doodling than anything else. The only thing she could call progress involved watching a few more episodes of the Italian Language drama. The night before she managed to get through an entire episode without having to look up any of the words or switch on the closed captioning. She suspected many of the phrases used would not be of much use in her daily life as the show heavily featured dramatic love affairs and explosive arguments between people whose rivalries lasted decades, sometimes even generations.
‘I’m still not sure why Lucas is mad at Gorgio,’ Sophie thought. She suspected it had something to do with a business deal between their grandparents that went sour but knew she would have to go back to the first episode to double check at some point.
As her weekly listening was mostly music as she could work faster to it than her podcasts Sophie felt a little like she was slacking on anything that wasn’t office related. ‘It is only for the week,’ she reminded herself.
She was more than happy to leave the office on Thursday evening and found herself more than a little reluctant to go in early on Friday morning. ‘It’s go in early to finish catching up or stay late tonight,’ she reminded herself.
After a moment of thought, she got up and went in early. As before, the building was quiet and she tried not to feel like she was tip toing around a sleeping giant. Eventually others arrived and she realized a bit. The morning rolled forward and determined to do her best, Sophie again worked through lunch while sipping on her smoothie. When her computer’s alarm dinged letting her know she was needed upstairs, she sighed and stretched.
Taking stock, Sophie realized she was only three files away from fully catching up.
Ten til Midnight 