Ais's Blog, page 4

ICoS merch! :D (Also on super sale during Black Friday)

In case you didn't see yet... Hey guess what? We made In the Company of Shadows merchandise! :D http://www.zazzle.com/agencygiftshop

There will be more as time comes, but when we realized Zazzle is doing a special sale today on Black Friday we released it earlier than we planned.

IMPORTANT NOTES!!!

1) Turn off the stupid content filter on the left or you’ll miss out anything that has cussing in it. (like the shirt that says “I’m a motherfucking Lothario of humans and robots alike”, or the apron where Boyd gets really pissed about Dutch Ovens)

2) You can pretty much customize EVERYTHING we have in the store. So if a shirt looks crazy expensive, just choose other styles and colors and you can get it to something more manageable. You should also be able to change fonts or colors or whatnot if you have preferences. (Sorry the things can’t be way cheaper. Zazzle has set prices)

3) Most important note? You can now have this on a shirt:



Also, you can get greeting cards that are, shall we say?, a bit twisted.

ICoS Cover Reveal, Interview and Review at Boys in Our Books

In case you didn't see, Boys in Our Books was lovely and invited us to be included in their FreeFic Week!

There were three releases:

Series Review

Interview with Sonny and me

and

Evenfall cover reveal

Enjoy :)

(And by the way, check out the stuff on The Foxhole Court while you're at it, including the guest post with Nora Sakavic)

April chat recap

Remember in April when we had that chat celebrating 100 members at the S&A group? We wrote a recap a bit after that but didn't get the chance until recently to finalize it. We're sharing it now.

THE CHAT RECAP CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGH THE END OF IN THE COMPANY OF SHADOWS!! DO NOT GO IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE SERIES!

I was going to excerpt some questions from it here but then I realized that I have a hard time getting spoiler tags to work properly in blogs and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. So I'll just direct you to the blog.

You can find it here: Q&A: April Chat recap at my author-writing-tidbit-type blog at wordpress (aisness.wordpress.com if you haven't heard of it yet)

Evenfall 3.0 by 2014, and Ais author blog

Evenfall v3.0 is officially in the works. We are in the process of editing Evenfall to make it more in line with the other books and to address some of the things we'd like to streamline.

When Evenfall is finished, we'll move on to editing the rest of the series.

When will it be done?
Evenfall will (hopefully) be done by New Year's 2014. Assuming our schedules don't go crazy in the meantime. And we can rock it like it's 1999 on the designated editing weekends. We'll be sure to let everyone know if we rock it closer to the 1890's and get pushed back on the timeline.

We don't have dates for the other books.

Will it still be free?
Yep :)

Will anything else change?
Indeed it will. As pretty much any reader of In the Company of Shadows/ICoS has probably noticed, the books are long. So in the process of editing the books, we will also reformat each book into two volumes. This will make each volume closer to a normal length book for easier reading pleasure. (And maybe help some of you get more sleep in the initial reading of the series. Can you convince yourself more easily in the middle of the night NOT to go to the next volume the way it never seems to work not going to the next chapter? Only time will tell ;p)

Right now the plan is it would still say which book it is.

For instance, Evenfall Volume 1: WORDS, Evenfall Volume 2: We Has Them.

(The titles will, of course, not be those. Probably. I'm about 60% certain on that.)

But what about publishing?
From the start, it's always been important to both of us that ICoS remain free. Because of that, we only want to switch to a new model when we both feel comfortable with it. Which, for both of us, equates to being able to afford professional editing as would occur in an official publishing situation.

We are keeping the idea of publishing it open because readers have asked for that. We apologize for the delay in being able to provide you with that, but when the time comes we want to be able to give you the highest quality possible for your money.

Which isn't to say that the series sucks now or that we won't be putting a lot of effort into editing and streamlining it ourselves to the best of our ability. It's just to say that we'd like to get some professionals to side-eye it pretty hard as well, so it can be as close to perfect in our eyes as it will ever get.

Any other important news?
You're awesome. Just in case you didn't know.

Oh yeah, and to tide you over in the meantime, I started that author blog dealie I was talking about the other week. So far I only have information from ICoS up but eventually it will expand to other stories and excerpts I'll be working on as well.

Find it for your viewing pleasure at The Inner Workings of An Ais (easily found at aisness.wordpress.com). You can start at the welcome post or the about page for an explanation. I tried to find a design that was mobile-friendly. It seemed to load decently on my phone so hopefully it will on yours also.

Incidentally, if there's information you're curious about that you don't see there and don't remember seeing elsewhere, let me know. I'll see if it's something I can post.

Please remember to keep any spoilers behind a spoiler tag just in case. Thanks for being lovely :)

At heart

I've been thinking today: people are at heart good. Yes, I know there are all sorts of counter points to that statement, but here's the thing.

First, look at the ridiculously huge human population on the planet, and then consider the fact that we haven't yet, in fact, destroyed everything down to the sphere at the center of the Earth.

Second, look at the people who cause issues for other human beings. On the face of it, perhaps some of them could seem like assholes through and through, but then take another step back. Consider the context of that person's life. Genetics and environment and experience go a long way toward shaping an individual and who they become later. There are arguments that could be made on all sorts of sides about how much is a person's free will and specific choice and how much is it something they couldn't actually help.

That isn't something I can debate on either side because I don't have enough information, but the point is that even if someone's an Asshole With A Capital A, even if what they're doing isn't fair to others, maybe at least there's an understandable reason for why their life has taken the path where they are being a jerk at this point in time. In short, they weren't necessarily born evil.

Third, consider the number of people who want to connect with others, to help others. The people who volunteer their time or money or energy to others, to complete strangers, maybe in their city or with a connection that is personally meaningful somehow, like being of the same descent or religion or sexual orientation. But this same spirit can be found in people donating something they worked hard to obtain or that is meaningful to them, to people who might be across the entire world, who they'll never meet, they'll never know personally, and yet they wish to help them on a level that will be very personally meaningful to the receiver.

Fourth, consider yourself. I'm fairly certain that if you're reading this post and you had the wherewithal and ability to click all the links needed to get here, then you are quite probably a human being. And I bet you are good at heart as well. And being so, you are a member of the human race, and thus you are part of the whole. Aggregate enough good hearts together and you can quickly gain a minority that I believe is actually the majority.

I saw a sign the other day that put a spin on that ages old concept of whether the glass is half full/empty. It said, "Don't worry about whether the glass is half full or half empty. Instead, go looking for someone who is thirsty." I liked that. I also like the answer I give people now: technically, the glass is always full since the other half is filled with air.

I was watching documentaries today on a variety of topics but one of them was about a man who decided to live entirely off the goodwill of others on Craigslist for a month.

And it got me thinking at the end of it how, you know what? Yeah. If some dude tried to suddenly crash at my place or wanted me to drive him somewhere, my first worry would be personal safety. Because I'm not big and probably any dude could overpower me with enough motivation. But if we were to assume I trusted him for some reason, or at least believed him, then my next thought would be: how can I help you?

If I learned he didn't have food, I'd want to give him food. If I felt safe with him over, I'd let him sleep the night on the couch. If I had someone else with me, I'd let him bum a ride. I suppose the presence of a cameraman helped those people make the decision, or perhaps it didn't. I'm not them so I can't say.

But it did get me thinking about my limited experience in traveling. I remembered when I got deathly ill unexpectedly the first day in Fiji, and my group dropped me off at a woman's house who they knew somehow. And that woman, bless her soul, let me lay on her couch all day, didn't mind at all that I kept throwing up in her bathroom, and even went out of her way to make me food that would help me feel better. Amusingly, we later learned she knew my favorite professor from college back in the States. Small world.

Then I thought about how rewarding it was when I ventured on my own in Switzerland. I didn't know any of the official languages but I could muddle through it well enough through other languages I knew, and I got on trains and explored cities on my own.

The time that came to mind was on the train ride to Basel. At one point after we had left one stop and as we were on our way to another, I found a wallet in the bathroom. It was sitting on the back of the toilet like someone had set it down and forgotten or it had fallen out of a pocket. I opened it up and found money, an ID, cards, you name it. But it was all in German and I didn't know how to get it back to the person.

I worried about it for a bit before deciding perhaps the person would realize they'd lost it and be right back. My seat was right next to the bathroom door so I watched it like a hawk for maybe three minutes before I couldn't handle it anymore. I was too worried that someone else would find it and steal that poor person's money, so I went back in and grabbed the wallet.

But then I had a problem. I didn't think you could call 911 in Switzerland the way you could in the US. And if I did, I'd have to rely on people knowing English. So I thought it might be better to give it to a lost and found somewhere, but how did that work in a cross-country setting like a train?

So I sat there worrying about this, clutching the wallet in my hand to protect it, and looked at the few other passengers. There were two women sitting nearby who were chatting away, and a few other people halfway across the way. In a lull in the women's conversation, I leaned over and asked in my awkward German whether either of them spoke English. I still remember the startled looks they gave me, but thankfully one of the women did.

So I explained to her the issue, and my dilemma, and I asked her how I could get the wallet somewhere safe for the woman who owned it. I remember she gave me such a baffled look at first. Maybe not baffled-- maybe just surprised. It was probably pretty damn obvious I'm American based on my accent and my inability to speak the local language. I'm not sure what impression the Swiss might have of Americans. We don't exactly have a stellar reputation around the world. I got the impression she was a bit surprised I was so intent on safeguarding this wallet and hadn't taken anything from it.

She had me show her where I'd found it, and I told her how there were things in it and that made me worried, and she said there was a lost and found at the station. She seemed like she was going to try to explain to me how to do this and then she shook her head and said, "It's okay. I will do it."

I thanked her profusely and perched on my seat like a jumpy little owl, my head swiveling at every noise as if I expected the owner to go to that bathroom and walk back out with a crestfallen look. And then I could give it to her directly without her having to worry.

The woman who had been conversing with my English speaking woman asked her something in German. I didn't need to know the language to know it was, "What the hell was that all about?" followed by an explanation. But I was really glad when our stop came and my English speaking woman and her companion got very determined faces and made a beeline for the help desk.

Of course, I never knew what happened. For all I know, that woman never got her wallet back. But I really hope she did. And I really hope she didn't have to worry too long until she was contacted. Maybe she was spared that and didn't even realize it was missing until she was told it was recovered fully intact.

But that's the thing. It's not like I did that because I figured a year from then I'd feel like randomly telling a story, or even because I found comfort in it. It was quite stressful, and I pushed myself out of my comfort zone interrupting those women asking them if they spoke English. I felt like an ass having to ask that; like I was just some lazy person who never bothered learning other languages. When instead, I've taken classes on at least 7 languages (although I'm definitely not fluent in any of them). Just. Nothing that helped me converse in Switzerland.

If it had been Spanish, I would have been fine. (Actually that's something else that was funny, when I was translating French museum notes into English in my mind and then into Spanish for a Spanish couple I met at the Roman ruins at the end of that train ride)

Anyway, the point is I was in a country where I didn't even understand the language and couldn't converse with people, and I found some complete stranger's wallet, which I made sure got into the right hands to get it to safety so she could recover it. And I'm just some person, right? So there are tons of other humans like me who are probably even more conscientious.

Which means the human race is filled with people who, when it comes right down to it, will react to a sense of community in a positive way by trying to help others in need. Often, for little to nothing in return other than satisfaction, adventure or peace of mind.

It's something that I really appreciate about humans. When we don't get distracted by unfairly judging our differences, we can be a kind and caring species who can recognize that a stranger could very well be a friend we just haven't met yet.

charity:water update

As some of you know, I turned 30 this year and I knew that people look at that as one of the "important" birthday years so I wanted to do something important for it. I set up a campaign through the awesome charity called charity:water with the hopes of raising $200 to go toward a goal of building a sustainable and clean water source somewhere in the world where it's needed.

You brilliantly wonderful people helped me raise $210 toward the goal!

I promised I would let everyone know as I received alerts from the charity, and I just got another update from them this week.

UPDATE!!

I received confirmation that the money has been sent into the field. The money was sent to Nepal.

The additional information I received is as follows:

WORK IS UNDERWAY IN THE SINDHULI AND CHITWAN DISTRICTS OF NEPAL.

30.5 million people live in Nepal
12% live without clean water

Of the nearly 31 million people living in Nepal, 12% lack access to clean drinking water, and 69% lack access to sanitation. Fortunately, the mountains, hills and plains that make up Nepal's landscape allow our local partner to implement many types of solutions.

Thanks to your help, that partner (Nepal Water for Health -- NEWAH) is busy helping communities build 1,011 new water points in the Sinduhili and Chitwan districts. The interventions include 971 community tap stands, 39 school and health clinic tap stands and 1 community rainwater catchment system.

---
We are currently in the 1-3 month marker which is when they send in the money. 3-6 months they get permits, supplies, pick sites and begin the work. The next progress report should come in the 6-9 month range.

I will do another update then :)

Thank you to everyone who donated to this-- and if you didn't get the chance to donate then and wanted to, you can donate directly to charity:water. Or, if you don't have money but want to help, consider making your own fundraising campaign through them.

It's easy and definitely worth it.

When doppelgangers diverge

I have met only a small handful of people on the internet so far who are so ridiculously like me I kind of think we might be a bunch of doppelgangers. I always feel happy about this, though, because as I'm sure I've mentioned before, I've felt alienated for most of my life.

Always the kid who did the things you were Supposed To Do while everyone else flagrantly disregarded all the rules like we later learn we're Expected To Do.

So even though I was raised in Midwest middle class America, probably downright wholesome compared to a lot of peoples' childhoods, I've always felt like I didn't belong.

But then, when you're the kid that says no to drinking, smoking, drugs, partying; when you're the girl who DOESN'T want to date a new boy every week in high school because you don't yet realize you're gay; when you were raised without religion but surrounded by Christians and later realize you feel more Pagan than anything; when you become vegetarian at 14, years before it's the "in" thing to do and years before you can even find vegetarian restaurants or fake meat options in the grocery store; and when you're the kid whose greatest punishment when young was apparently not being allowed to go to the library-- yeah, you're kind of a freak of nature even in Midwest middle class America, and you're always going to feel like there's something really fucking fucked up about you that will never properly be fixed.

What I've been thinking about lately is the way we develop preferences as people, and how those play out so subjectively when looking at the same thing.

One of the people I love to talk to about books the most is one of the very few doppelgangers I know. She and I are on the same wavelength about so many things it's kind of ridiculous. For the most part, we agree about the things we don't like in writing/books. We agree in theory about the things we like to see.

And yet, when we bring up specific examples, we read them completely opposite of each other.

My current favorite two stories she doesn't like at all. One of them she hated the MC and read the exact opposite into his intentions than I did. In the other, she couldn't make herself care about any of the characters because she felt that they were all too damaged. Yet, her favorite series is one I didn't like. I spent about 90% of the series extremely frustrated and if I'd had to describe the series in two words it would be "missed opportunities." And yet she loves that series.

Interestingly, when we discuss the specifics of what we did/didn't like, for the most part the other person can say, "yes, I can see where that part was" but their answer is "but it didn't matter to me because ___" while the other's is "and this is the reason the story is dead to me."

How is it that we as people can be so in line on everything but then when looking at the same source material, interpret it exactly opposite of each other?

It's fascinating to me. And sometimes a bit saddening, because after pretty much never feeling like I belong in my peer group my whole life, whenever I find someone I do understand on a deeper level I have this automatic expectation that we'll agree on everything. That finally there will be someone who sees the world the same way I do. And when that theory is proven wrong, there's a tiny bit of kickback. A feeling like once more, somewhere along the way I veered off course from everyone else and maybe one of these days I should just sit the fuck down and stop trying.

Because seriously, how can I still not belong even at 30?

Yet, the other side of that double edged sword is that I've always felt like it was a good thing to not be mainstream about everything. So I feel no pressure to fit in because I don't want to have to be someone I'm not, but the simple act of always being different is itself something that wears at a person over time.

There isn't an answer to that conundrum so I'm not really searching for one anymore. I never felt the need to fit into peer pressure even when I was 7 or 17 and I'm certainly not going to start now. I would support the hell out of people being themselves, whether or not it's mainstream, so it's not like mainstream is bad. It's mainstream for a reason. Most people belong there and are happy there and are able to be who they really want to be there, and that's incredibly important.

It's just apparently very rarely Me. And apparently that fact will continue to make itself evident throughout my life.

Still, today I was thinking about these viewpoints. I was thinking about the way we rate stories, the way we review them, the way everything we do is filtered by the lenses of our childhoods and opinions and beliefs.

There's no such thing as a 'perfect story.' Everyone is going to see it from a different angle, and that will be the facet of the diamond that reflects their impression. Was it brilliant or dull, was it sharp or soft, was it deep or superficial, was it long or short? Was it meaningful or was the meaning lost in that scant space between reality and perception?

All we can really do is calibrate our views to others' when we need it. All we can do is try to shift our stance a step to the left or right to see the world for that one moment in the eyes of a friend, and know whether or not they view the world the same as us.

And when you really think about it, it's beautiful that we all see it a little bit different from each other, because in that way we can stitch the stories together and bring out all the contours of light and shadow. We can see it from more than our one, limited side for the few seconds it takes to believe that everyone else's view is just as important as our own.

Death and mourning

I've been thinking about death lately. Someone who was important (but not close) to me years ago recently lost his wife, and I didn't learn about it for a while. Then I bought a sympathy card, and it sat there for weeks while I tried to figure out the words to say.

At work, I have an unofficial shrine of the people I know through there who have died. Their pictures sit against my metal filing cabinet, held up by cheap magnets I got in a 25-pack. I see them every day, but I can't really think of them as being gone.

I never really learned how to mourn.

I learned how to shut it down inside, to think of them as being somewhere else where I'm just not seeing them on a daily basis. Like I didn't in life, either.

My grandparents on one side of my family died before I was ever born so I only ever had one set of grandparents, and one of them died when I was a teenager, and the other when I was still in college. I wasn't yet old enough to be able to fully appreciate them. I never got all the time with them I wanted.

A lot of things were destroyed in my family after my grandma's death. Things that are still broken a decade later. That was the closest family connections I had on that side and it fractured irreparably like a dropped mirror.

Still, I remember the week as she died. I wrote a poem I planned to read aloud at her funeral, and it was finished while she was still alive. My aunt asked me to read it to my grandma, and I did.

She loved it. She asked me again and again. "Read me my poem. It's beautiful. Read it to me again."

I was one of well over a dozen grandchildren. A quiet face in the background that never fit in with my peers and always wanted to be with the adults. Always striving to understand the things I didn't understand at the time. They used to say I had an old soul. A gentle soul. When I considered myself Wiccan, I thought of it in terms of reincarnation. Now, I don't think of it in any concrete words.

But I remember her clouded eyes, that used to be such a sharp icy blue you could see them even in the shadows, and I remember how translucent her skin became, as white as her hair. And despite her frailty I remember that smile that came to her lips when I read that poem.

I'd always thought she didn't like me. She was a strong-willed woman with a sharp tongue. When I sliced myself open on the barbed wire fences, when I was terrified from the first bee sting I'd gotten because my dad is allergic to bees, when I ran away from huge spiders and snakes in the cabin, she was there yelling about how much of a wuss I was, what a city child, buck up and get a spine. She was grabbing the snakes from behind their heads, stomping to the door, and flinging them outside into the grass with nary a care.

She was never the stereotype of a grandmother I kept hearing about from friends. The friendly old lady baking cookies and spoiling her grandkids. She was the outdoorswoman who trudged through the snow with boots that were too short and a scowl on her face, the wind whipping her hair, gloved hands running along the flanks of her horses, and she was determined.

I read her poem at her funeral. I can't remember if I cried.

Exactly a month later, the dog who had been closer to me than anyone else, who I loved more than I can say, became so frail from an illness that had been etching away at her life for months that I finally knew there was no more time. We had obligations with my favorite cousin to make it to her bachelorette party, and I felt torn between being there for the dying dog I loved, and supporting my cousin as our family fell apart and people took sides on either side of an invisible line in the sand. I would have gone to the party, but my mom said maybe we could wait an extra day and go down for the party only, instead of going down the night before.

That night I laid pillows out on the floor, set my dog's water dish and food dish nearby, and slept fitfully holding my dog while she struggled to breathe. I startled awake multiple times in the night, terrified she had died while I'd been resting.

I woke up the next morning to find her hardly able to move. Any water she drank, she threw up. She was slow walking outside, but I remember her in the dappled sunlight. The tips of the long green grass fluttering against her dark fur. Tipping her head up into the wind, and closing her eyes. Taking in the moment.

I had learned Reiki when I was relatively young, 16 years old, and when we came back inside I kept using it on her. Maybe I could heal her, I thought. Maybe I could make her liver better. Maybe I could fix this thing that was out of my control.

I held her in my arms and tried again and again to heal her, wanting so desperately to hold on-- and then I remembered reading online how someone had lost their pet to cancer, and how they had used Reiki to try to send their pet on more comfortably.

And I knew.

She wasn't going to make it. She was going to die. I couldn't stop it. I could only tell her I loved her.

In the middle of a silent sentence in my mind, I changed the intent of my Reiki from "Please don't leave me, please stay here, I'll help you, I'll heal you," to "I love you, please pass on gently, it's okay."

She knew.

I still remember the moment clearly. The second my intent changed, she opened her eyes and looked up at me. Her tail wagged twice, tiredly, hardly a lift of the end before it thumped against the pillow. And then she looked forward and died in my arms.

I cried so hard I couldn't breathe, and then had to walk upstairs and interrupt my mother who was on the phone with the vet trying to set up an appointment to bring her in to euthanize her. I don't even know what I said. I could hardly get the words out that we didn't need that appointment anymore, and that the dog I had loved more than anyone had lost her life while I'd been holding her.

Why is it that the memory of that moment still makes me cry? Why do I still have dreams where I see her alive, and in my dream I know something is terribly sad and wrong about seeing her running around but still I feel a strange sense of relief? When I wake from those dreams, how can I still sometimes find tears on my cheeks?

And yet the memory of my grandma dying doesn't do the same thing. Seeing those photos of my coworkers on the wall, I remember who they were to me in life but I don't focus on their death.

Maybe it's because I always felt guilt over my dog.

I was the first one to recognize she was sick, but I kept thinking maybe she would get better. I had been ready to go to my cousin's against my better judgment to help her and it would have made my dog suffer unnecessarily for an extra day or two.

What if she had died when she was alone? What if I had forced her to take that end because I didn't choose her, even after she had spent all those months curled up outside my closed bedroom door when I'd been away at college?

She had always been so loyal to me, and I had run the risk of not being as loyal in return when she had needed me most.

I suppose it's easy to fall into the What If game. What if I had, what if I hadn't? Could I have made it better, would I have made it worse? What do we know about how life would have happened with different choices we'd made, and yet how can we stop worrying over those futures that never will be?

There isn't an easy answer-- maybe there isn't even an answer at all-- but there are words, and they are the only thing people can give when they're at a loss for anything else, facing a tangible and intangible loss someone else has suffered.

I thought of those things as I stared at the card. In the end, this is what I wrote:

I bought this card the day I heard about W, and then it sat on my desk for days while I tried to figure out what to write. When I was in college, you always knew what to say. It was your words, your classes, that ultimately set me on the path I've led since, to the place I am today. Your words were an inspiration that ignited a passion for anthropology I didn't even know existed within me until I met you.

That's the way it is with inspiration and memories. They catch us unaware and stay somewhere buried, but utterly important, until they need to be brought out again.

I will always remember W from the first time I met her. It was some sort of party after hours. She came in with you and what I remember most is her smile. Instantly, she left me at ease. I knew she was a person who was as beautiful and important inside as she was outside.

Ultimately, there are no perfect words. The only words I can give are my deepest sympathies for your loss, and my greatest gratitude to have known W for as short a time as I did. She was one of those deep memories, and I know she'll never be forgotten.

Brightest blessings to you and yours.

ICoS spin-off, Julian Files 01: Negligible

The Julian Files is a series set in the past of In the Company of Shadows, focusing primarily on Private Investigator Julian 'JJ' Jones, but including Cedrick and his family as well. SERIES WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED ICOS!

For context, this scene takes place the same year that Hsin shows up at the Agency.

---

Julian Files Part 1: Negligible
Thursday May 12, 2005; Lexington, PA

Even on the far end of Crandall Park's sprawling playground, shrieking kids disrupted the otherwise calm morning. Julian's fingers twitched and he resisted for the third time reaching for his pack of Winstons. He'd have gone for it anyway if the adulterating mom across the way didn't give him the evil eye every time he touched his pocket.

Jennifer Groves, twenty-seven years old. Whitebread America mistressing it up with a certain Latino charmer named Joaquin Padilla. He doubted she knew he was the PI who had given her husband the racy photos of the two of them going at it like horny teenagers against a window of the White Oaks, but being as she recently stopped smoking she knew a fellow nicotine addict when she saw one. Not that her attempt to go clean living was liable to last long, once good ole Chris Groves was done raking her through the divorce proceedings.

It never ceased to amaze Julian how stupid so many people were. What made them think being in a mid-range hotel made the windows any less see-through when they decided to have sex against it? And so many of them had the receiving partner splayed against the glass face out, too. Made his job a whole hell of a lot easier to get the money shot.

He considered whipping out a smoke anyway just to fuck with her when he noticed Cedrick approaching.

The man was a conundrum. He wasn't bad looking by any stretch, but he easily could have been forgettable. Stocky build, average height, brown eyes, brown hair... Nothing stood out at a glance. In a photo, he would have been the guy in the background no one thought to look at twice. The gift of anonymity. Julian wished he had the same at times.

But in motion, that was when all the little bits came together and made Cedrick recognizable. His easy, loping gait. The smile that seemed ever ready on the edges of his lips, and that goddamned infectious grin that popped out at the least expected moments. Made his whole face light up like a Christmas tree, and at times even made Julian fight a grin in return.

The trademark Beaulieu not-yet-smile was in place as Cedrick strode toward him slower than normal, and when all the trees and kidlets were out of the way Julian saw why.

He raised his eyebrows and flicked a glance down at Cedrick's side.

"Brought the kid, huh?"

"Couldn't get a babysitter." Cedrick rested his hand around Boyd's skinny little shoulders, pulling him against his thigh like some sort of tall dog. The fond smile aimed down at him probably wouldn't have looked out of place in those circumstances, either. "Can't say I'm sad about it, though. I don't get enough time with him as it is."

Cedrick dropped easily onto the park bench next to Julian, and soon it was the both of them who stared at Boyd.

Truth be told, the kid creeped Julian out. Like Cedrick, his photo op impression was different than his video. He was a cute kid by looks alone; fine blond hair, huge eyes an unusual golden brown color: a skinny little thing with pouty lips. He hovered in that childlike androgynous zone of not seeming resigned to either gender entirely.

Maybe if he smiled once in a dinosaur's age it'd be fine but he was like a little alien. He stared at people like he was dissecting their motivations, filing it away in some five-year-old version of Enemy vs Friend, or maybe he was just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on around him. Julian might have thought he was slow but he'd seen the kid write and draw well beyond his nephew who was four years older. And when the kid talked, which wasn't often, there were times his sentence structure and astute observations were like he was twice his age.

Julian sometimes wondered if the kid was going to turn into a serial killer someday. If so, he should probably make sure he wasn't on his hit list.

"Hey there, champ." Julian patted the bench next to him. "You can sit down. Last I checked you weren't a vampire and this bench wasn't a house so I'm pretty sure you don't need an invitation."

When Boyd only stared at him with his too-guarded-for-a-five-year-old face and luminous eyes, Julian felt the same weird mixture of aggravation, bemusement, and devilry he often felt around the kid. He didn't resist the temptation to reach out and ruffle his hair so harshly it made his head rock back and forth like a little bobblehead.

When his hand dropped, Boyd's hair stood up in huge tangled tufts not unlike the aftermath of a balloon rubbing. Julian smirked in satisfaction. Boyd staring just as seriously out of that made him look like a grumpy, rumpled cat and that made Julian let out a loud "Ha!" of a laugh.

Cedrick chuckled and leaned forward, gently smoothing Boyd's hair back down. He rested his fingers on Boyd's chin and turned his face toward him. Boyd let his head move but his eyes remained on Julian until the last second when they flicked over to his dad.

Like Julian always said. Fucking creepy.

"Why don't you go play with the others, Boyd? We came here so you could have some fun."

Boyd's pouty little lips turned down even further. Jesus. He had the same disapproving stare as his mother. If he didn't turn out to be a serial killer, he'd become something equally terrifying. Julian was sure of it.

"They won't approve of me."

Seriously, what five-year-old talked like that?

"Yes, they will." The fatherly smile of Cedrick's was all manner of affection with a little bit of mischief tossed in for spice. "And if they don't, forget them. They aren't good enough for you. You can have fun on your own."

Boyd looked over his shoulder at the playset, looked back at his dad, and hesitated. There was something vulnerable in the slight quaking of his shoulders; the way his eyebrows drew in and his feet seemed poised between flight and folding. Those little fingers of his twitched at his sides.

"I don't want you to leave me. What if I go and when I come back you're gone?"

It was said in such a small voice, made all the smaller for coming from a young kid like that. A pang pulled at Julian and he had to look away.

Continue reading at Julian Files 01: Negligible in Ais' writing section

What do you wish you could read?

As a follow-up of my last blog post asking for recs I now want to ask you guys something:

What do you wish would be written? What are things you've been wishing you could read but you can't find anywhere?

Not necessarily plots of stories (although I guess that works too) but mostly I'm curious if there are themes or even small details that bug you when you read a story and you wish wouldn't be in there, or (even better) things you wish WOULD be in there?

Like how I asked about awesome characters, do you wish wounds would be taken care of in a medically believable manner? Do you wish people wouldn't jump straight to "I love you" the second they acknowledge attraction? I'm throwing those out as the first ideas but be creative!

Whatever you wish, I'd love if you commented!

Partially I'm just curious, and partially I've been thinking it could be fun to write short stories/drabbles that try to meet your criteria, if anyone mentions anything that pops an idea into my head. (If you'd be okay with it)

And partially I thought, maybe you'll find someone else who wished the same as you and maybe they'll even have a rec for you :)