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Post by Wes on Nov 23, 2016 11:47:42 GMT -5
I would imagine that many of the readers of Joe/Joan are of an age where they can look back at the majority of a lifetime and see things that they wish they had done differently, starting back when they were teenagers. I know I can look back at my life and identify several such decisions, some of which I thought were good ideas at the time. I think many of us would be happy to go back to their mid-teen years and start over knowing what they know now.
But what if circumstances are a little different, so you can't just go back and be faced with those same decisions all over again?
Suppose you were faced with the decision Joe didn't realize he was making in his truck cab on an Interstate in Oklahoma, riding into a thunderstorm? At the time he didn't realize it was serious, just a little nervous talk. Would you be up for going back to when you were eighteen, but in the opposite gender, or possibly some other change that would separate you from the life you previously led, perhaps something like a different race or nationality, or just living in a different part of the country?
Things were very different between the genders back in those days, probably more so than they are today. Eighteen-year-old girls were much more restricted in the opportunities open to them, although things were changing. What unexpected challenges do you think would surprise you? Would you be up to facing them?
I'd like to see some of your thoughts on this. However, I would like to ask that if you purchased Joe/Joan and have read the whole thing, that you be careful about not letting spoilers loose and possibly ruining things for readers who are getting the story a chapter at a time.
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Post by K Pelle on Nov 23, 2016 12:48:12 GMT -5
I'm going to start out by saying that I'm one of those folks who enjoy reading serials as a serial, so I have no preconceptions of a tale as I'm reading it. Secondly I may have gone through my teenage years a few years earlier than you (late fifties), so I saw 'some' of my teenage 'angst' in a slightly different period, but I'd say that so far you're doing well. Additionally I consider 'do- overs' to be more in the realm of fantasy, than science fiction, but that's a personal opinion and of little bearing to your question. Now I also happen to be another 'teller of tales,' and a male, so I know the difficulty of trying to write a story from a female standpoint -- to put it mildly, it ain't all that easy.
All that aside, so far, you're doing GREAT!
KP
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Post by Boyd Perrcy on Nov 23, 2016 17:20:32 GMT -5
I've read this book multiple times. The thing that strikes me the most is the "aloneness" that Joan must endure. She is unable to let her guard down because she fears how others will perceive her plus she doesn't really know what happened to her and probably never will. Joe, on the other hand, is caught in a seemingly unending loop of mundaneness. Normally, I would say that I would tempted to stand in front of a big rig and get it over with quickly. Since Joan knows how Joe has led his life, the reader can expect Joan will try to live her life differently. The reader will have to decide if she succeeds in the end and who they pity more: Joe or Joan. It is not as easy as it sounds. I remember an old professor of mine once saying that we are all caught in an endless cycle of thinking, feeling and doing.
I don't think I've dropped any spoilers here. I think that Wes has given us some food for thought, as he often does.
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Post by Arthur Keith on Nov 24, 2016 18:12:45 GMT -5
I must admit that I am waiting and will read the story with some trepidation. I have enjoyed the stories you have written up to this point, but am kind of afraid what I may read with this one. Do-overs are difficult enough to get right, very few do in my opinion, and one where you bring in male to female, makes it not only more difficult for the writer, but I am afraid, also more difficult for me as a reader. So, allow me the time to decide if I like this.
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Post by Boyd Percy on Nov 25, 2016 1:49:44 GMT -5
In chapter 6 the narrator surmises that the split between the timelines had occurred sometime before the Civil War (1881-65). I'm not surprised that Wes chose that point in time. Having had a few email exchanges with him, I quickly learned he is a Civil War buff. One time I made a misstatement that General Sherman's campaign was only in Georgia. He quickly corrected me that the famous March to the Sea also included the Carolinas. Since then, I've tried to research any statements I've made to him about the Civil War so I don't sound like a total idiot. He doesn't seem to hold it against me that I have a southern bias and I don't think of him as a "damnyankee". He also seems to tolerate that I don't always get straight to the point which is a hallmark of traditional southern speech. Anyway, this story is progressing nicely with the promise it will get better as it goes along even if you don't care about or know much about science fiction or fantasy or "do-overs".
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Post by Jim Scott on Nov 25, 2016 9:08:35 GMT -5
Remember that Wes is a reporter/editor/publisher so I doubt Boyd is looking for Wes to hire him. In Wes's trade you have to grab them with the headline and then start the paragraphs with a strong statement to keep them reading. In Boyd's post he finally got to his message with the last sentence. I suspect Boyd structured it that way to prove his self description in the previous sentence. Brilliant of him. I like it.
Jim
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Post by Jim Scott on Nov 25, 2016 9:09:26 GMT -5
Remember that Wes is a reporter/editor/publisher so I doubt Boyd is looking for Wes to hire him. In Wes's trade you have to grab them with the headline and then start the paragraphs with a strong statement to keep them reading. In Boyd's post he finally got to his message with the last sentence. I suspect Boyd structured it that way to prove his self description in the previous sentence. Brilliant of him. I like it.
Jim
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Post by Boyd Percy on Nov 25, 2016 19:57:03 GMT -5
I can't say when I first read this book but I thought it would be another winner for Wes. I figured that many of Wes' regular readers read science fiction in their misspent youth instead of textbooks like they probably should have been doing like Joe in this book. Many of them probably still liked to read science fiction. It seemed like less of a risk to me than a book like Down by the Riverside. Plus Joan is such a great character; certainly in the same class as Crystal, Myleigh and Jennlynn and many others. I don't know if Wes has a sister but Joan could fill the bill as his twin sister. I think the majority of the readers will agree with me by the time this book finishes posting in February. If not, I'm sure the next book will be even greater. Anyway, a very commendable first effort in the science fiction genre unless Wes' doppelgänger has already written one in another timeline.
Jim, thanks for your comments. I was just rambling as usual. Wes is very tolerant of my emails. At least, he hasn't blocked my email address yet.
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Post by Leo Kerr on Nov 27, 2016 20:11:54 GMT -5
On a somewhat different subject, but triggered by today's posting of Joe/Joan -- is college wasted on college-students?
When I went, I thought I knew what I wanted. Three or four semesters in, either I didn't want it, or I was at the wrong place (or, presumably, both.) So I dropped the initial major and changed to something else. And kept burning on a path toward a 4-year program, largely focused on the major-program(s).
Now, universities have come up with various schemes to attempt to get students to take more than just their major-courses, and while I was there, there were three different schemes, based on when you started, with three different TLAs. And if I remember right, when I was there, I ended up taking.. maybe 18 credits of general classes? A little linguistics, one very marginal semester of Latin, "physics for poets," and a smattering of other classes that really didn't mean much of anything.
In hindsight -- and I graduated from college something near two dozen years ago -- I wonder if some of the older style "university educations" where you end up taking a lot of history (none at all for me,) general sciences, is there something that might be loosely considered "practical maths"?.. sociology.. I don't know. But something so that people don't hit school quite so focused and burn through with a very narrow program of study.
Because, to use me as an example, I started out as a film major. Shifted to geography, which I think the best thing about it was it was almost wholly "process" dedicated, which did provide some sense of how to think, and ultimately ended up getting jobs more related to the fact I spent my free time hanging out in the theater swinging from the (admittedly low) rafters hanging lights, and now am working as a lighting designer.
But certainly in larger conversations with people around me, there are a lot of things that people seem to take for granted that.. at least the way I went to school, if you thought you knew what you wanted, you really didn't need to take anything else.
So, I guess, in a round-about fashion, I'm asking: is Joan making the right choice (at this juncture of Part VII being posted,) of going to college more to be educated than to be in a program?
(And in the Wes-world, well, examples regarding college are pretty odd, with people like Crystal, Randy, Nanci.. although I also wonder if I might have approached college differently had I gone to a much "larger" school than the regional state U I went to.)
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Post by Wes on Nov 27, 2016 21:44:34 GMT -5
I would certainly agree that college is wasted on a lot of students, ones that don't have clear goals in mind. But at the same time, how many goals last through a college career anyway? And how many kids will wind up doing something that has little or nothing to do with what they studied in college? Lots, although I wouldn't want to put a number to it.
The concept of a gap year is growing in this country -- taking a year off between high school and college to get a look at the real world, maybe hold a job and get things into perspective a little. Sometimes they grow beyond a year -- my English son-in-law wound up spending five years in China and meeting my daughter in the process. I went to college aimlessly for a year, dropped out, and wound up taking a decade-long "gap year" before I went back to college, but at least what I learned after I went back was of marginal use to me.
However, in Joe/Joan's case things are a little bit different. Her primary reason for going to college is not primarily to get an education, at least at this point in her life, but to get away from the parents so Joe in Joanie's body can get a chance to integrate into becoming Joan without someone who knew Joanie wondering what the heck is going on with her. She could not do that if she stayed at home, and is only managing now by leaning on her "amnesia."
I could say more but I would be getting into spoiler country if I did.
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Post by Boyd Percy on Nov 27, 2016 23:19:26 GMT -5
To get away from spoilers, I have a question about a VW mentioned in chapter 7, not the VW Karmann Ghia Joanie took to college. JJ (lazy man's abbreviation of Joe/Joan) said he owned an old VW bug in the other timeline which had stickers of California, Washington and Alaska on it. Was this the same VW that Eric Snow drove in Promises to Keep?
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Post by Wes on Nov 29, 2016 14:18:25 GMT -5
Could be. If it was the same one, Joe would have been right that it was a real clunker.
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Post by Ed Greenberg on Nov 30, 2016 6:09:08 GMT -5
This post needs a serious spoiler warning for those of us who are reading post by post. As soon as I saw reference to something I hadn't read, I scrolled to the bottom to post this message.
Wes, as admin, can you edit the subject line?
Ed
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Post by Wes on Nov 30, 2016 9:00:08 GMT -5
Good idea. Done.
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Post by Boyd Percy on Dec 1, 2016 23:27:31 GMT -5
Wes is having some fun with us. A Bouldering and Climbing class in a small religious school in the 1960s! All I could find are courses at outdoor schools like Crystal and Scooter attended.
Joe saw mountains while driving a truck out west; maybe Joan will get to climb them.
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