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 251: Sophie found herself actually smiling when she unburied her dress form and found the in progress dress still pinned to the form,

things seemed a little peculiar to Sophie. I mean she was used to her drama over things that didn’t go her way. This time was different. She promised herself that she would not give up. As she checked her dress, she became overwhelmed. She realized it was either ruined or, at the very least, it was dirty. What would she do with soiled material? It was two weeks from the ball and here she was. An unfinished dress that was also soiled because she decided to bury it in the dirt. Some predicaments. Her idea started with the perfect material she saw as she glanced through the store’s picture window. Periwinkle. That color purple was her favorite shade of her favorite color, so, Sophie had to have it. What she surprised herself with was the fact that she found a pattern to make her own dress. How in the world did she ever think she would manage to keep her cool while creating a dress. She couldn’t believe she’d make a dress for a ball. It was to impress the most well-mannered young lad in all of Scotland. His presence seemed too picture-perfect for her to believe. Something was bound to come along a screw everything up. She just knew it.

Back to reality. a dress had to be made, and she was the only one who can do it. Sophie’s mom passed away when she was young. So, Sophie was accustomed to doing things on her own. Those were things a mom would typically do, like sewing a dress. She started by washing the material in the bathtub. She figured that would be the best solution for her at this point. When the bathwater was murky with dirt, she drained the water. And started the whole process once more. She did this until all the dirt was washed away and she was left with clear, pristine water. The dress had to be hung over the shower rod. It needed to dry enough to start her journey of sewing her dress for the ball. Munro her date for the evening was just dreamy. Sophie started dreaming of living in his family cottage. She wondered how life would be on the land that had been in his family since the start of WWI.

Until Next Time,

Heidi💜