So we are back on the ship trying to relax on Serenity, the adults only deck, but there's a band playing loud on the ship across the pier from us. Right now they are covering Bon Jovi, which I can live with but it's not really what I want right now. Playing black metal at full volume can't drown it out. Are full broadside cannon volleys still legal in the Caribbean? ☠️😄

LOL, I am not back in Canada until Sunday. The Environment Canada app tells me we should be up to a whole -4 by then.🥶😊

Today is St. Maarten, a Dutch territory on an island shared with France. Nice day so far.

I am on a cruise and that seems to be the one time I get a lot of reading done anymore.

First up is 428 AD by Italian historian Giusto Traina (translation by an American colleague). Interesting conceit. He picks one year late in the Roman Empire and then circles through the Roman world looking at the state of culture, politics, etc. He picked 428 because there's lots to talk about but no huge, history-changing events. The sack of Rome by the Visigoths is 18 years in the past, as is the retreat from Britain, while the final fall of the city and end of the Western empire is still 50 or so years off.

Next up is Byzantium by Judith Herrin, a look at the culture and significant elements of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking survival of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean that lasted until 1453. Needless to say, there is some overlap with 428.

Hello from Barbados!! Actually, we are pulling out soon. Had a lovely sunset. Fifth of eight islands. Tomorrow we are at sea, then the last three. Too many islands, really. I am getting some reading in, though, mostly history stuff. Late classical to early medieval.

Oo, baked goodies. Yeah, right, like I need more calories right now. Scarfs a slice of whatever bread that is on the right side

Terrific comp and a deserving top 3 and runners-up. Nice to see this site liven up a bit, too. And a good kickoff for 2025. Congratulations all, especially to Molly, Sherzahd, and the judges. A great team is why we have great things.👍😊

Quote by JamesPBear
Our favourite cruise was a Panama Canal transit, from San Diego to Port Canaveral in Florida.

My boss is a hardcore cruiser. As in most of his vacations involve large ships. He has a canal transit booked for Fall, I think, and he is actually taking the cruise I am on now next year. We swap notes a lot but it rare for me to be the first to take an itinerary. We are eyeing Hawaii out of LA (5 sea days each way) based on his review.

Quote by verbal
We bought him dinosaurs.

Like, toy ones or the real thing? 😂 Because there are still dinosaurs around of the avian variety. Saw some pelicans in Orlando the other day and they are one of the birds that really brings that home.

Thanks for looking after the place Mr. Bear.

Quote by verbal
Unplugged in the Smokies sounds wonderfu

Indeed. Loved my trip to the Smokies but mine was not unplugged.

Watching and waiting from down here in the Caribbean. Visiting the USVI tomorrow (for the second time. It's a popular cruise stop.)

Quote by CuriousAnnie

Your wish is my command ... 'Just-in-time' Annie has submitted.

Yay! Aussie to the rescue!😁

Good day! I am writing this from an airport lounge waiting for my flight South. Will be hanging around on and off. After all, don't want to miss the comp results. But I will be scarce compared to usual.

I shall leave you with some dark Costa Rican coffee. Not tea, just leaving a selection out with hot water. Sodas looking good.

Amen to that. I knew the theme was a good one right from the announcement. Glad to see I got that much right.

Quote by gillianleeza

I'll always watch anything, Frankenstein.

That's the Guillermo del Toro one, right? Him doing Frankenstein, or any classic monster, intrigues me. Could be interesting.

I was a bit meh on the Branagh Frankenstein, aka Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is the last adaptation that I saw. Like Coppola's "Bram Stoker's" Dracula, it hit many of the right notes but some of the modern interpolations just didn't land as well as the ones in Dracula. Both overstated their fidelity to the original, even if they came closer than many previous adaptations.

Quote by gillianleeza
The longest time on a ship is when we travel to Newfoundland. It's an eight or so ferry trip from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. When I first heard you took a ferry, I pictured something small and quaint. It's an ocean-going vessel with over three hundred cars, trucks, and over 900 people aboard.

You can even book overnight berths on those ferries. We looked at going to Newfoundland on a trip to Eastern Canada in 2022 but then a hurricane went through the region, hitting the parts of New Brunswick and Nfld that we planned to visit. So we changed plans and spent the whole trip touring Quebec instead. Ended up being a good trip. Quebec's national parks (equivalent to provincial parks in other provinces but Quebec is a nation, right?) are amazing.

We don't shop much, just sightsee. We have tours booked for some islands and then use an app called GPSMyCity which has self-guided tours for many destinations, including most of the ports we are visiting. Costs me all of US$13 per year or something like that and you can download to use online. Renews via Google Pay. And sometimes we just hit a beach.

We have five sea days and 8 ports, of which 5 are ones we have been to before. I can't even remember them all right now. The ones that aren't repeats are Antigua, Dominica, and Grenada. This type of cruise is really not my first choice. They're getting a bit old hat as you suggest. But my wife finds resorts boring compared to island hopping on a ship so this is how we spend our winter getaways.

Personally, I would happily hit a good resort in the Dominican or something, pack my laptop along, and write on the balcony or something. I have staff from St. Lucia and the Dominican Republic on my team so can even get hot local tips if we go to one of them.

Welp, I'm all caught up again. More! We need more!!

Woo hoo, the stories keep coming! AAnna has put us up to 14 entries!!

Snow Bound | Stories Space

And story #14 in the comp is up, from AAnna.

Snow Bound | Stories Space

So both Anna's are in. Anna that's all folks. (dodges tossed fruit)🤣

Good snowy morning. Maybe I'm getting the storm verbs was talking about yesterday. Took maybe 18 inches off my driveway already and it is still coming down on and off. Winter in Ontario, you know I ... well, I sometimes love it. Oh well, the Caribbean beckons. Three days to go.

Putting on some Fire Roasted Holiday Blend because, hey, we've lots left over and it's not that far past the holidays yet. For teas, there's Earl Grey and Raspberry Royale, both from Bigelows. Hot water is ready and sodas are stocked.

How's things?

Quote by verbal
Anyone heard from Cora? Sara? Red?

Sadly, no, though Cora's profile says she was last on 3 days ago so she's lurking, at least.

First week of the month so, as usual, Authors Publish has a new list of story markets and contests seeking submissions. And it's the usual diverse mix, ranging through witchcraft, Sleeping Beauty, queer adventure spec fic, poems on food and late bloomers, and much more. Some of the deadlines are, as usual, a bit tight but if you drill through to the sites, there's often schedules for future calls.

» 41 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for January 2025

Thanks for doing the setup, o white furry one. Yeah, 13 with a few days to go is pretty good for here. Recent comps have sometimes been struggling to break 10 at this point. More, please. 😊

Working on stuff but not sure I'll have anything ready for a while. Debating taking my laptop on vacation. It's a cruise and we do have 5 sea days when I could hunker down somewhere on the big boat and write. However, my reading has been flagging badly and cruises are usually a good time to get some focus on that so more likely I'll just take my tab and load it up with e-books.

Hey folks, check out the comp page. Two more entries!!!

And Dreamweaver's:

https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/fantasy/the-winter-solstice-releases-lunar-magics-2

Oo, I see a couple more entries snuck in. AnnaMayZing and Dreamweaver023 have joined the fun.

Here's Anna's:

https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/flash-fiction/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-2

Quote by gillianleeza
I drove through a weird snow squall yesterday. It's not something that often happens here. I was dropping my husband off to pick up his truck at the shop; it was in for work after he hit a deer a few weeks ago. I was in the shop for only five minutes, and when I came out, it was dark and very windy, and my car was completely covered in snow. It was rush hour on a Friday, so that did not help. The drive home was torturous, but we finally returned safely. The snow squall only lasted about an hour.

Oh man, we get those all the time here in Southern Ontario. Just last Friday, we went from sunny to a light squall in minutes at one point in the afternoon.

Good morning. How are things in your world, folks? One week and I'll be in the sunshine on a big floating resort, a.k.a. a cruise ship. Sure not getting much of the big fusion reactor in the sky around here these days.

Put on some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee for you bean worshippers. For the leaf crowd, we got Scottish Breakfast and Yorkshire Red. Hot water is, of course, available for other hot beverages as is our selection of sodas for cold beverages.

Doing some writing and listening to metal. It's an playlist that kind of fits with what I am writing, the music of a Dutch band called Blackbriar.

Here's some Deathwish Dark Roast (fits with the music) and some Scottish Breakfast and Peach White teas.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Later.

Good morning. Winter has returned to Southern Ontario, seemingly to stay for a bit. Fortunately, this ape is now only a week away from heading South for a spell so I will be able to ignore the cold and snow for a bit. Going cruising again, with stops on a bunch of Caribbean islands.

For now, though, here's some Columbian dark roast, a remnant of my cruise of a year ago when I toured Cartagena. And there's English Breakfast and Vanilla Earl Grey for the tea set. Hot water is ready and sodas are stocked.

What's up? Anything exciting coming up this weekend?

This is the best pace I have seen in an SS comp in quite a while. Looking forward to seeing more. Still more than a week to go...

And I am, once again, caught up on the comp entries. Come on, folks, challenge me. I am in a Flash kind of mood these days. Just can't seem to focus on longer stuff.

I need to decide what to write next. None of my current projects seems to be engaging me much. Maybe I'll try some more Flash type stuff just to keep things moving.