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Forever on a Tree


James

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Now I'm REALLY confused. The original post, the one that seemed to have disappeared, is now again visible to me. I have no idea what is going on. Anyway, I have the Chapter and will email it to Mountain Dude. Thanks, and I don't feel disrespected anymore, just puzzled as heck.l

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Now I'm REALLY confused. The original post, the one that seemed to have disappeared, is now again visible to me. I have no idea what is going on. Anyway, I have the Chapter and will email it to Mountain Dude. Thanks, and I don't feel disrespected anymore, just puzzled as heck.l

Treb did in fact send me Ch 20 and I do so much appreciate his effort. I have no idea what might have happened with my post disappearing before. I didn't check for new mail 'til this morning.

Thanks again Treb

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You're welcome.

Actually, I had a similar problem with The Mustard Jar some time back. No matter how often I returned there, no new pages showed up. Turned out that I needed to Refresh the page, although technically coming to the site from 'nowhere' should have automatically given me the latest version. I should have just tried doing a page refresh.

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You're welcome.

Actually, I had a similar problem with The Mustard Jar some time back. No matter how often I returned there, no new pages showed up. Turned out that I needed to Refresh the page, although technically coming to the site from 'nowhere' should have automatically given me the latest version. I should have just tried doing a page refresh.

Don't you just love computers -- sometimes I would just love to cut the power cord!

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Don't you just love computers -- sometimes I would just love to cut the power cord!

ROFLMAO. Yes, but just unplugging it is cheaper. :hehe:

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Cheaper, but eminently less satisfying.

Picture yourself leaning down and pulling on the plug, or in my case, getting on hands and knees, crawling under my desk, battling cobwebs and various creatures than live in the dark depths there, and fighting with a mass of wires to ferret out the right one and then trying to yank it from the wall.

Compare that with selecting a giant pair of shears, happily snipping away, or perhaps even better, swinging a massive sledge hammer at the sucker.

And you don't have to spell that last word with as 's' if you don't want to.

C

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  • 1 year later...

I'm confused. You never actually got to finish it, but you've read it and want to reread it. As I said, I'm confused.

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Thanks The Pecman! I really appreciate it!

As for my previous post, I apologize. I actually phrased it really badly. I read the majority of the story while it was still on nifty. I think I read up to the second chapter that took place during the story's college years. I've been wanting to reread it and finally finish it. I actually only joined the forum because I've been sporadically trying to track the story down the past few years and this was my only lead.

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Hello Kuinut:

There's two ways to look at everything, I guess.

But if you apologize for what I took to mean that you read it before it was finished, and were absent when the final chapter appeared, I want to first run to your rescue, and then show you the sign that says "Don't encourage them..."

But you got your answer, and you came to the right place for that. Hello All :cat:

Tracy

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  • 3 years later...
  • 4 months later...
  • 5 months later...

Good morning, Angels!!

So I know this might be a bit tacky, but I am a tacky sorta fellow, so I can't claim to GAF much, heh. Right. So. I was thinking about messaging the appropriate people on this thread individually, but figured it was more efficient to do it this way. For anyone still looking for FoaT, it is now finally up on amazon and iBooks and BN and such. (Hashtag better late than never, the kids might say. [Do the kids say "hashtag?" I s'pose not, but damned if I know. I can still remember when that was the pound sign. Anyway.]) I mass e-mailed everyone who wrote to me about it, but for the lovely individuals on this site, I'm not sure I ever heard from you. So, just making a quick note here. I'm sure this was not exactly earth-shattering news, but now I can go sit on the couch and do approximately nothing all day knowing I did my due diligence. :-)

Thank you for your time, Angels. Deuces!!

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  • 1 month later...

No spoilers here, though it discusses what I think is a gigantic spoiler in the Kindle version.

I remember starting to read Forever on a Tree on Nifty when I was in high school. There were three problems: 1) The book is mostly dialogue. Sometimes (actually many times) I couldn't figure out who was speaking and it took me out of the story, and I'd have to go back and trace who said what to whom. This was in part because Joey failed to identify the speaker often enough, and in part because every speaker had the same voice and used exactly the same slang. 2) The songs that are referenced in the story (and there are a LOT of them) were mostly before my time, and I found it frustrating at times because some of the song titles are important to the story. It seemed that what kind of music each character liked helped define who they were. I didn't take the time to look up and listen to all of the songs. 3) He was VERY slow to post new chapters; this is the reason why I gave it up.

Now Joey Gumb has published Forever on a Tree as a Kindle book on Amazon.com. I don't know if it's available outside of the U.S.A. It's reasonably priced: $3.99. For a book that is as long as FoaT (and it's VERY, VERY long) the cost is low on a per-word basis. I have two irritations with the Kindle version: A) The font on Kindle is Bookerly Bold; there is no way to turn off the bold. Changing the typeface from the default Bookerly helps, but it's still bold. B) Problems 1 and 2 above above are still in the Kindle version.

I've just finished reading FoaT. Not rereading, because I don't remember much about the story. However, I found the sequence of chapters in the Kindle version totally confusing. IMO, it is important to read the story in chronological order, chapters Y1 through Y9 then chapters X1 through X4. To do so you have to pay attention to the chapter numbers. But the chapters aren't arranged to link that way. Because if you start with the first chapter in the table of contents, Part One Chapter Y1, you'll get bounced around and not read the most important chapter.

ALTERNATIVE 1: READ THE STORY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Go to the table of contents and click on Part One Chapter Y1. Use the Kindle next-page button to move through the chapter. When you've finished with Chapter Y1, it goes to Chapter Y2; then Y3; when you've finished Chapter Y3 it jumps to Part Two Chapter X2.

DO NOT READ CHAPTER X2.

Return to the table of contents and select Part One Chapter Y4; then it goes to Chapter Y5; then Chapter Y6. When you've finished with Chapter Y6 it jumps to Part Two Chapter X3.

DO NOT READ CHAPTER X3.

Return to the table of contents and select Part One Chapter Y7. When you've finished with Chapter Y7, it goes to Chapter Y8; then Y9. When you've finished with Chapter Y6 it jumps to Part Two Chapter X4.

DO NOT READ CHAPTER X4.

Return to the table of contents and select Part Two Chapter X1. When you've finished with Chapter X1, it jumps to Part One Chapter Y1 which you've already read.

Return to the table of contents and select Part Two Chapter X2. When you've finished with Chapter X2, it jumps to Part One Chapter Y4 which you've already read.

Return to the table of contents and select Part Two Chapter X3. When you've finished with Chapter X3, it jumps to Part One Chapter Y7 which you've already read.

Finally, return to the table of contents and select Part Two Chapter X4. This is the last chapter in the story.

ALTERNATIVE 2: READ THE STORY IN THE SEQUENCE THE CHAPTERS ARE LINKED, STARTING WITH THE "SKIPPED" CHAPTER X1

The linked order is: X1, Y1, Y2, Y3, X2, Y4, Y5, Y6, X3, Y7, Y8, Y9, X4

Start with Part Two Chapter X1 and let the bouncing back-and-forth stuff just happen. If you don't start with Part Two Chapter X1 this means that you will NEVER READ IT. If you don't read this chapter; the last three chapters (X2, X3, and X4) won't make much sense. TRUST ME! (Okay, okay, you might say this is a spoiler, but I call it preventing total confusion.) So what if you now know that Part Two Chapter X1 is critical to understanding the rest of the story? BFD.

(If you review what I've written above, you'll discover that "it goes to..." and "it jumps to..." NEVER INCLUDES Part Two Chapter X1. What I tell you is to click on Part Two Chapter X1 from the table of contents in both Alternative 1 and Alternative 2.)

If you start with Part Two Chapter X1, IMO you've read X1 which is a gigantic spoiler. It's like reading a murder mystery that starts by telling you who the murderer is and why and when and how they killed the protagonist, then you read the rest of the murder mystery as a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards. I think if Joey wanted to book to be read this way, then the chapters should have been arranged in the order they are linked, not the way they are listed in the table of contents.

By accident, I read it using Alternative 2. The "accident" is I went to the table of contents, then I used the Kindle next-page button to move to what I thought was the first chapter that's in the table of contents. I didn't pay attention to the chapter numbers. So, I was dumped into Chapter X1 of the story with a bunch of characters, and their relationships and motivations that I didn't understand, and I was very confused. When I finished reading the story I was frustrated because I don't like stories that have flashbacks and flash-forwards.

If you read FoaT, I'm curious so post here to let us know which way you read it (linked chapters starting with X1 or Y1 through Y9 then X1 through X4); if you think you preferred reading it that way, and why you think it's the better choice.

Colin :icon_geek:

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