For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 134: She wasn’t sure she wanted to study the others as they were even less pleasant.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to study the others as they were even less pleasant. “And you know, I don’t think it matters that much at the moment.” Penelope decided. She knew she could easily spin herself into studying the issues obsessively and still never come out with a definitive answer. “So I’ll look at that later.”
Throughout the morning another idea was niggling at the back of her brain. Everyone from the books to the guardian to Amelia clamed that it was typical for people to get abilities from one blood line. While she was beginning to believe that for some reasons she was getting mixed bloodlines, she wasn’t sure it was good to advertise that.
“Agent Michaelson and the bank manager know about the plant.” Penelope sighed. “Everyone at the bank probably knows about the plant.” She knew she could do nothing about the gossip. “But she told herself, focusing, growing plants might fit into a specific bloodline. So I need to know what other abilities are in that bloodline so that those are the only ones I talk about.”
Given everything else, from the mysterious note to her neighbors, Penelope thought that might be the safest course. She closed the book she was reading and looked towards the shelves.
“I need to know what other abilities come with the bloodline that makes plant’s grow,” she said aloud. She hoped the books would help her out again and to her delight an entire shelf started dancing on their shelf as though uncertain which one should be chosen first.
Penelope stood and walked over. As she placed a hand to the shelf the books stopped moving around. She glanced at the titles. Several of the volumes were journals. They were each from different people. She pulled the first one down and saw it was a journal from a man named Jaron. It was written in seventeen twenty two. Penelope flipped through the pages and her gaze caught on a reference to plant growth. The script was neat but condensed as though he wanted to take up as little space as possible. Unlike Amelia who wrote out long descriptive paragraphs, Jaron put things down in short almost bullet point sentences.
‘Plant growth achieved. Eight year’s growth in four minutes. Will try new varieties to see if ratio holds.’ There were other notations, predominantly numbers. After a few moment of puzzlement Penelope was certain the numbers related to extra sleep needed after accelerating the growth of plants. He seemed to be keeping tack of that as well.
“Useful,” Penelope thought remembering how tired she had been after the bank. Part she was sure was emotional, but she expected the magic took something from her as well.
She continued flipping through the pages. Jaron tried expanding evergreen trees, turning seedlings into trees and then did the same with deciduous. There was an extra chart for fruit and nut trees showing bearing loads along with the other information.
Ten til Midnight 