Stage Two

Or Part Two, or Second Movement, or Phase Two, something like that. No, I'm not talking about the stages of grief, although it's kind of similar in one case.

Yes, of course I'll explain. Don't I always?

As noted last night, I'm past the brief period after the First Magnus meltdown in which I couldn't think about anything else. My concentration is back, and I'm able to get on with other things, especially my writing. Today I wrote the rest of that "Darma saves Masha" scene without even referring to the notebook with the missing page. It's probably better than what I originally wrote, too, because I made different choices on how the scene is resolved. So Mages Chapter 21 (AM Chapter 10) is finally done, and so is Chapter 22/AM 11. That was a little tricky. It called for the writing of two additional scenes, but I cut them, and arranged surviving scenes so that I don't need the others.

In both chapters, I ended up cutting several repetitive bits in which Darma reflects on kinds of magic and the morality of using magic to help people and not just for its own sake. They were in there because I wanted to make sure Darma had a character arc and wasn't too weak, victim-like or underdeveloped. It turns out, though, that she's got plenty of decent scenes now, except that the moralizing was out of hand. It's better now. Those scenes will need another pass before I'm quite satisfied, but I'm already resigned to another edit of the trilogy, as soon as I finish this one. That next edit may be the last pre-submission one, though. Yay!

Anyway, that puts me in Chapter 23/AM 12, the last chapter, in theory anyway, of Another Mâvarin, the second volume (Stage Two, if you will) of Mages of Mâvarin. The trilogy's page count, for those of you keeping score, is up to 1,183, which isn't so bad when you realize that means I added a major sequence that hadn't previously been typed up, but with a net increase of only five pages.

Still, I did take care of some necessary errands on the job hunting front, which is the second phase of this whole post FMFC transition. Here are some of today's purchases. I got myself a black sports jacket for interviews, two pairs of good slacks, a red top, socks that cannot be described with the word "crew," fresh makeup, a haircut, and two boxes of hair color. I'm a little nervous tonight about my meeting with the placement agency manager in the morning, and about another position I plan to apply for in person at a local resort, in compliance with the job listing's instructions. I hear it's a great place to work, the qualifications fit me pretty well, and the job involves auditing, an area I've been very interested in since studying it at UoP.

The First Magnus updates for the day are minimal. The Arizona Daily Star had an excellent explanatory article, First Magnus: Boom to bust in three weeks. The local papers here allow comments at the end of articles, and this one got a ton of them, mostly some troll claiming that all FMFC employees except possibly the janitors were crooks who deserved what they got, and ex-FMFC employees rising to the bait. But the article itself is pretty sound and fairly presented. If you've been wondering how the company failed almost overnight without anyone seeing it coming, I recommend the article to your attention. Meanwhile the First Magnus web site is still the pre-Black Thursday version. I can only assume that it's there so that certain people - officers, HR, regulators, who knows? - can access old information contained therein.

So. Big day tomorrow, and I'm a little nervous. There may or may not be a direct deposit from First Magnus into my checking account, I may or may not hear from HR tomorrow with answers to questions, and I may or may not hear back from the county's FMFC hotline people. But I'm definitely meeting with at least one person about my job prospects, probably applying at that resort, and possibly stopping by Worldwide Travel just to say hello. But first, it's time to cover up those shortened, mouse-gray hairs with a bit of auburn, so I can look my best tomorrow in the interview clothes and makeup. Good night!

Karen

P.S. I reread that resort job description, and I'm not qualified after all. Drat!