NaNoWriMo Day 3, and the first excerpt of The Assistant

It's the third day of National Novel Writing Month, and I'm already starting to feel the strain. It used to be easy for me to write 2,000 words a day. Well, let me rephrase: it used to be easier. These days it feels more like work, less like pure pleasure. Don't get me wrong, it's the kind of work that leaves me satisfied. So writing isn't always a downhill journey for me. So sometimes it's an uphill climb. The view from the top, though? Hell, that'll always be worth it. 

To celebrate 5000 hard-won words, here's an excerpt of The Assistant, where Nick Kurosawa first meets his future employer, Jacob Umber. I hope you enjoy it!
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There was no name or sign on the door, but a small sign proclaimed the same hours Alex had written on the card, handwritten in jade-green ink. A bell over the door jangled atonally. He had the instant sensation of being watched, though he saw nobody; only a shadowy depth of shelves and bric-a-brac, crowded to the ceiling. Hanging from the ceiling, in a few cases. A cow skull leered at him eyelessly. A dented, rusty sword hung suspended in sisal. A brown trunk was tucked in a hammock of crossed leather straps.

At first sight, the shop looked empty, an abandoned warren. Even when he turned the corner and came face to face with the desk Nick didn't see anyone for a moment. Then the shadows shifted, ever-so-slightly, and he saw him: a man in a high-backed chair, watching him.

He was...average, at a first glance. White, probably, and neither small nor large, forty-something, indistinct brownish hair. But there was something about him, some poised alertness, that raised gooseflesh on the back of Nick's neck. Nick cleared his throat. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I'm looking for Jacob Umber?”

“I am Mr. Umber,” the man corrected. He wore a dark gray suit, white shirt, a plain black tie, and well-polished black ankle boots. One knee, Nick saw, was fixed in a hinged, carbon-black brace.

Nick raised his eyebrows. This one's a stickler for formal manners. “My apologies. Mr. Umber. My name is Nick Kurosawa; Alexander Finn said you might have work for me.”

Some flicker of expression passed over his impassive features. “I know. Mr. Finn passed on your details.”

Nick had never heard Alex referred to as Mr. Finn before.

Umber rose from his chair, his knee giving him a moment's difficulty. He was shorter than he seemed sitting down—​with the heels of his boots adding an inch, he was just about a head shorter than Nick—but broader, too, with unexpected muscle beneath the neat lines of his suit jacket. “I wouldn't usually hire ex-military,” he said. “Too many preconceived notions.”

He looked Nick up and down with clinical interest—his eyes were a grey bordering on green. For a brief, wild moment as Umber approached him, Nick had wondered if Alex had sent him here to be pimped out, but his flat, assessing look wiped out any thought of that possibility.

“If Alex Finn passed on my details,” Nick said, “he's passed on that I'm more than just ex-military.”

Umber raised an eyebrow. “Fair enough.”

What do you think? Want to see more?

​It's definitely been a shift for me, not writing SFF! The first iteration of the idea was urban fantasy, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it wanted to be its own thing, without any wizards or vampires (so far!). Fantasy and science fiction will always be my hometown, but I can tell this is going to be an interesting trip.