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 170: As a result she worked quickly and had the leisure to let her mind turn over possible design ideas.
As a result, she worked quickly and had the leisure to let her mind turn over possible design ideas. As she snipped and stitched, Sophie occasionally paused and jotted down a note or took a second or two to draw a quick impression. It slowed her down, but not by much and made her feel less like she wass on a draconian march.
She managed to tick off every item on her list of things to do and still have time to unwind on the couch before bed. She put on her Italian drama, eager to see if the jewel thief was any closer to being caught and took her sketch pad with her. The bare outlines of sketches she made while working were tweaked, adjusted and fleshed out a bit more. By the time the show was over, she was yawning, but pleased with her progress.
The next morning she got up and did it all again. The only difference was lunch and she was happy to go to the food trucks with Linda and Petra. They were much more talkative and Sophie was pleased that she was not the topic of conversation. Kristen and the others were not mentioned either and Sophie was happy with the thought that they were gone for good.
Tuesday slipped by ass did Wednesday and Thursday. In the office Sophie was on track and out of the office she was meeting her schedule and still allowing herself a little leeway to relax and let a few design ideas percolate down to her sketch pad. Friday, she approached her afternoon meeting with her supervisor feeling good about what she was accomplishing in the office. She had only a little left to do before she managed to finish out her week and she didn’t think anyone had complained about her. She took the elevator upstairs prepared for a simple run down of her progress.
Instead, she found Elizabeth standing outside her office and talking with Sean. “Am I off schedule?” Sophie asked as she approached.
“No you are on time,” Elizabeth said. “However the schedule has changed. We have a meeting.”
“A meeting?”
“In the conference room,” Sean clarified. He turned and started walking, Elizabeth started after him and indicated that Sophie was to follow. In her mind, Sophie started to run through all of the things that she might have done in the past two weeks. The week prior she had her head down as she managed to recover from her two weeks off and this week she had simply done her job. With the exception of the occasional bathroom visit and twice lunchtime breaks she hadn’t really left her office.
‘But that didn’t stop things before.’ Sophie thought.
She followed the others into the conference room and found that the same people who were there in the office when she was questions here before were present. In addition there was a new person, a man wearing a suit that looked both pressed and starched. He had glasses on and was positioned at the table in such a way that when Sophie looked at him the glasses reflected light rather than showed his eyes. She found it slightly disconcerting.
Sophie was offered a seat and she sat, as did Sean and Elizabeth. The man at the end of the table cleared his throat.
Ten til Midnight 