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!