Mark Arbour

September 17, 2003 Tribeca Manhattan, NY JJ I felt a foot gently nudging me, trying to wake me up. “Mr. Jeremy, they are all gone,” Jacinta said. I stretched out, trying to get the ache out of my muscles from sleeping on the floor of her closet. “Thanks,” I said pleasantly. She was surprised at that, since I was usually pretty crabby in the morning. “What time is it?” “It is five o’clock,” she said. “Have you been up all night?” I asked,

October, 1800 HMS Valiant Near Landsort, Sweden His Majesty’s frigate Valiant crept slowly forward, waiting for dawn to break, and even more importantly, waiting to see if the fog had subsided. They’d been mired in a maddening soup of the stuff for the past four days, damned to exist in a tomb of atmospheric moisture. The waters in the Baltic were so littered with submerged obstacles that after the first day, they had only dared to progress under very light sails. Gra

That's a good point, but being ahead of the curve would have led him to think that it wasn't contagious, per se, since it's spread by mosquitoes.

Well said.

September 15, 2003 New York, NY JJ “That was quite the day,” Stef said, as he and I collapsed into the soft seats of the Maybach. All I really wanted to do was sit there, say nothing, and try not to be in a pissed off mood, but Stef was evidently insistent on having a conversation, just one of the many things he’d done to seriously annoy me today. “It was,” I agreed, forcing myself to be in a good mood, even though it took a herculean effort. We’d gon

Part of the way I got my head back into writing was going over and re-reading my old stories. Inevitably, that lead me to find some errors and annoyances, and I ultimately opted to try and fix those. I had done that in the e-book file format, but that was before I realized that GA no longer has an e-book section. Anyway, it is my intention to update those stories where I made changes, but it may take me a while. I'm also planning to post them in e-book format on Amazon, just for those who like to read old stories in that format. I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, if you see activity for an old story, that's what's happening. One of the biggest changes you'll notice is on multi-author books. Originally, I'd just changed the font and color to designate different characters, but a very helpful reader pointed out that it would be better to show the character's name in the beginning of that segment. That's how I've been doing it for quite a while now, but when I make these changes, you'll see that becomes universal, and you'll see that the fonts are now the same.

Very good. You're on your game!

Happy Birthday!

Sorry about that. I did some editing to make the story better, and in fact, that’s one of the ways I worked my way back to writing. Nothing substantive has changed, though, just took care of some nit picky things that bugged me. I’ll update the other chapters as well.

Thanks! Lots of delays, and it just gets colder.

Thanks for your comments, and for still reading! I think that Stef nailed it perfectly: JJ is too immature to handle Carullo, or probably anyone.

September, 1800 HMS Valiant, The Baltic “It is stunning that what took us three days to transit while heading east has taken us two weeks going in the opposite direction,” Daventry grumbled. “Our merchant friends are a lubberly lot,” Granger said with a smile. “You must also factor in the foul weather and winds.” “I would suspect that saving those merchants will do much to erase your unpopularity with their brethren when they return to England,” Daventry

September 15, 2003 Escorial, CA Will I yawned, even as I walked into the kitchen. Stef and Grand were the only ones there other than the kitchen staff, and they were doing their typical morning routine. Grand was reading the paper while Stef watched the news at the same time he read some report. “Good morning,” Stef said pleasantly. “Good morning,” I said, and yawned again. “Sorry.” “I take it you were up late,” Stef said, but it was really a question.

Thanks. Three more days.

Thank you very much.

Spot on, although I always pictured Darius as having features that were a bit pointier.

The odds are good. 🙂

That's exactly what I"m going to do.

Thank you very much!

Greetings everyone! I hope this finds you all well, and you don't hate me for being such a sparse poster (and all but ghosting) for so long. I've been really busy these past few years, and the results of that were that I finally earned my PhD (thanks for all the good wishes!). Anyway, all that academic writing clogged my creative brain (SMILE), but I think I've unblocked that. I'm planning to start posting new chapters again for both Northern Exposure and Black Widow starting on Bastille Day.

The Norwegian Pavilion at Epcot had a ride called "Maelstrom", which has since been turned into a ride for Frozen 😡 Either before or after the ride, a Norwegian voice that pelted out that "to know Norway is to know the sea." It stuck in my memory.

Very good! I don't know if you're the only one playing, but you're the person who won!

I had to double check to make sure Chapter 13 was within the last five chapters.

No, it's within the last 5 chapters.

I don’t think I was clear. It’s at least a sentence long. And here’s a hint: Disney