MarkStory: Blog

So...

In 2004, a much younger MarkStory, inspired by a friend he made on "LiveJournal," of all places...started writing a little story about a chance encounter between a married man and a young woman at the grocery store. My LiveJournal friend gave me the actual "meet cute" between herself and a "DILF," as she called him.

My LJ friend and I drifted apart after a while, and I had a difficult time deciding where I wanted the story to go without her influence. I picked it up in 2010 and wrote one more chapter, but I never really loved the story as a whole. So I shelved it, left it "Incomplete and Inactive." That always nagged at me like a splinter under the skin, and occasionally readers would send me notes, begging me to finish the story.

After I finished "Who's the Blonde Stranger (On Broadway)?" I took another, critical look at PBB. And I didn't love it. The bones of the story were decent, but the prose itself was immature, with a distinctly "locker room-y" tone in its descriptions of the female characters. The 2004 version of this story was about a horny married guy, a sexpot college student, and a nagging wife. Those are not very interesting character types to me, not anymore. I'm older, maybe wiser, and now have a 20+ year marriage under my belt (yes, now I'm divorced, but still). 2004 Mark didn't have that experience.

I understand the rhythms of a long-term relationship now. Understand that things aren't always black and white, that life is most interesting in the shades of grey.

So I rewrote chapters 1-4, maturing the language, making the characters and the scenario more interesting (I think), eventually taking it in a different direction. Those chapters are either posted now or will be very soon.

I've got chapters 5-7 mostly written, and am currently working on 8. I think the story will have 10-12 chapters when all is said and done.

Since American Thanksgiving is a pivot point in this story (chapter 4) I love that I'm getting this reposted and revived just before the 2025 version. It's not likely that I'll have the story finished by Thanksgiving, but likely by the end of 2025.

Let me know what you think!

Some new illustrations for my story "The Arrangement," much better than the previous ones I created, have been drawn by a wonderful artist named Terry. (He doesn't want any more credit than his first name.)

I'm in the process of adding the 5 new drawings to the appropriate places in the HTML of the story, but if you like, you can see all of the drawings here. (Note that if you haven't finished the story, the drawings and captions will contain spoilers for the plot!)

The Arrangement: Illustrations by Terry

Hi all:

So I've re-read "The Arrangement" from start to finish a couple of times this week, first time I'd read it in its entirety since I finished writing it. Still quite pleased with it. I found several typos, and revised the chapters and reuploaded them to fix.

I also made one content change. A reviewer of the story noted the improbability of a "secret society" like ISPOTA, and the fact that they'd have a network of physicians around the world explicitly approving of sexual activities between adults and minors. :)

While the existence of ISPOTA is central to the story, the knowledge of the physician is not, and I see the reviewer's point. It does stretch believability a bit to imagine doctors around the world knowing of these Arrangements, and not notifying the authorities.

So, I tweaked chapters 5 and 6 to note that Arrangements simply require medical examinations from a "board-certified physician." Basically just a standard sexual health exam, and then the doctor is asked to fax the results to a specific fax number, with no mention of the organization behind it. That seems a little more logical to me.

I welcome your thoughts! Also, in reference to my last post re illustrations for "The Arrangement," I've reached out on a couple of online forums to see if I can find an illustrator willing to work with me, pro bono. If you (or someone you know) would be interested, please get in touch!

As many readers of "The Arrangement" know, the character Riley is based on someone I met on a cruise ship this spring. Though we didn't have an "Arrangement" or any sexual contact whatsoever, we did have several frank conversations, and she was the inspiration for the story.

One of my greatest regrets is that I don't have any pictures of her. It would have looked inappropriate for us to take photos together, and she doesn't seem to have any sort of online or social media presence that I can find. (It's probably for the best that I'm not in touch with her, to be honest with you.)

But, it makes me sad that I'm sort of forgetting what she looked like, and I've been trying to find an illustrator to add some artwork to "The Arrangement." (My previous effort, with "Second Life" avatars, was not very satisfactory.)

Flipping TV channels yesterday, I happened to see a Disney Channel actress who looks very similar to "Riley." So similar, in fact, that I actually exclaimed "oh my god" out loud or something along those lines when I saw her.

Her name is Devore Ledridge, she's 15 years old (as Riley was when Mark met her!) and you can see some pictures of her here:
https://www.google.com/#q=devore+ledridge

In many photos, she has straight hair, whereas the inspiration for my story's Riley was wavy. But in this one particular picture, she looks so much like my "Riley," that it makes my heart ache:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7fHSfRIZpHA/VyVqEKvOh2I/AAAAAAAAOeQ/c9tveZuctvk3Md17Lc3jNXQOj7TTjMx7gCLcB/s1600/devore-ledridge-1.jpg

If I can find an illustrator to work with me on some images, I will of course post those here when done.

Several readers have correctly pointed out to me that the Epilogue to "The Arrangement" isn't a true Epilogue, as it doesn't pick up from / isn't related to the Prologue.

So, I've just uploaded a new version of the final chapter, changing it to "Chapter 16: Abby" instead. Everything else remains the same. Thanks to all for such positive feedback!!