Two Page Average

Things have been very good as of late. I finished my Barnes & Noble training only half an hour ago. I like the mentality this company has--their standards are very high, so getting in the door was the biggest part of the battle. Our store manager said today that they get 30 applications a week on average, and they don't throw them away! They're always looking for talent. Also, they love to promote within the company/store.

Here's the silver lining. I've been talking to the Field Trainer quite a bit. She says she never dreads having to go to work, and from the way she acts, I believe it. I took part in some sales roleplaying with her and she blindsided me with a few things (like a customer would). Later on, clearly in the presence of the store manager, she said I will do great as a bookseller because I've shown a lot of enthusiasm for it.

The good news doesn't stop there. As I've already implied, I've been doing a lot of typing on Ashes of War. Two pages a day on average. That seems small, but it's more than one might think, mainly because I don't start in the proper format. The way I type, I start at the top of the page, 12-point font, single spaced, and go all the way to the bottom. The reality is that I "officially" put out twice as many pages as I say I do, since standard format is double spaced.

I have jumped around in the story quite a bit, but it's allowed me to develop and enrich several of the Uyoku characters and plots so they'll be consistent throughout. I even found another subplot this week, this one based around the assassination of a socially important figure. I don't want to say a whole lot because I haven't pegged down all the details, plus I want there to be some surprises.

Speaking of which, I need to go back to the typing. I'm working on a very intimate sequence that leads to the previously mentioned assassination plot. Yes, "intimate sequence" is code for sex scene, but there's no way around it. The overall story of the book will suffer without it.