Scent of Tahiti, the novel

Published 2022 - Available on amazon.com

SCENT OF TAHITI

When the 1960s brought nuclear testing to what many think of as

a South Pacific Paradise, it also brought intrigue and espionage. 

Anne Lavalette leaves a good job in France to join Jacques Duval, 

as he has asked. When she arrives in Tahiti, what she discovers 

is more shocking than anything Anne could have imagined.

Learn what you never knew about a real place and time.

The author knows Tahiti. She lived there for nine years,

at the time that this story takes place.

"If history was told in the form of stories,

it would never be forgotten."  --Rudyard Kipling

"Scent of Tahiti", the novel

Available on amazon.com

"Scent of Tahiti", the novel set in a true place and time has been

PUBLISHED! July 2022

A novel set in Tahiti during the time of atmospheric atomic testing in the South Pacific by the French. I lived in Tahiti for 9 years at that time. As Rudyard Kipling once wrote, "If history were told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten." Estimated publication date: 2022.

-Walking at lagoon's edge-

Punaauia Districte, Tahiti

French Polynesia - in the South Pacific Ocean

Patterns and Textures

I like patterns and textures.
I like to create patterns and textures with words.

https://www.flickr.com/pho…/tracyzeye/sets/72157622502705081

"Betrayal on Aruba Winds" - the novel

Betrayal on Aruba Winds

https://tinyurl.com/Betrayal-on-Aruba-Winds-amazon

KIRKUS REVIEWS

TITLE INFORMATION
BETRAYAL ON ARUBA WINDS
Tracy Novinger
Morpho Publishing, Inc. (356 pp.)
$15.99 paperback, $6.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1-983723-89-6; March 2, 2018

BOOK REVIEW

In this novel, a businesswoman at a personal and professional crossroads discovers that the secrets of her past may help her solve problems in her turbulent present.

At 31, Alissia Aruba Saxton has a life that many would envy. She works for an import company in the United States and has a devoted fiance named Tom. While she places a premium on responsibility, she also yearns for the casual spontaneity of Aruba, the island of her birth. Shortly before her wedding, she fights with Tom, makes mistakes at work, and suffers from nightmares. Believing her present problems are rooted in her past, she returns to Aruba, where she reconnects with her mother’s dear friend Rika and recalls the people and places that shaped her life. Her father, Stass, worked for the oil refinery, and her mother, Nessa, was a housewife whose dreams of attending college were thwarted by the high cost of education. Alissia was an observant child who spent much of her time exploring the island with her friend Eddie Williams and observing the men who worked with her father. However, her memories of the island also have a dark side—one that comes into focus when she examines the lingering effects of an assault and her role in a mysterious death. Novinger’s (Intercultural Communication, 2001, etc.) novel is a sweeping historical epic that explores themes of memory, guilt, and responsibility while introducing an unforgettable heroine. Throughout, Alissia is haunted by one simple question: “Is my paradise something I made up?” Her search leads to revelations that are shocking and thought-provoking. The island setting plays an important part in the novel, as well, and Novinger creates a richly detailed portrait of Aruba in the 1940s and ’50s, highlighting aspects of everyday life and showing the importance of the oil industry to the local economy.

A vivid historical epic that’s expansive in scope yet intimate in focus.

A YouTube Review

Doctor Tomás Costal Criado at UNED in Pontevedra, Spain, posted on YouTube a thoughtful review of the first of my two published, non-fiction books:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZMgxc2wdlY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Click to view video on YouTube: Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide]

Wordplay

A Way with Words

#paraprosdokian

 "Where there's a will, I want to be in it."

And the Plot Thickens...

                        Plotting away...

Misfits

#write #creativity #misfits #reinvention

What an elegant conceptualization of a misfit this is.

[Writer Lidia Yuknavitch] starts to speak directly to her fellow misfits in the room. “There’s a myth in most cultures about following your dreams. It’s called the ‘hero’s journey.’ I prefer another myth to the side of that, or underneath it maybe. It’s called the ‘misfit’s myth,’” she says. “You may not know this yet, but you have the ability to reinvent yourself, endlessly. That’s your beauty.”“You can be a drunk. You can be an abuse survivor. You can be an ex-con. You can be a homeless person,” she says. “You can lose all your money or your job or your husband or your wife or, the worst thing of all, a child. You can even lose your marbles.”“You can be standing dead center in the middle all of your failure,” she says, “and still I’m only here to tell you: you are so beautiful and your story deserves to be heard. Because you, you rare and phenomenal misfit– you new species — are the only one in the room who can tell the story the way only you would.”

--http://blog.ted.com/lidia-yuknavitch-tells-her-story-at-ted2016/

Telling the Truth

#Fiction #Truth1 #Truth2 #Truth3 #Truth4

Rules on Truth:

1. Always tell the truth (at least most of the time).
2. Tell the whole truth (more or less).
3. Tell nothing but the truth, with a few embellishments, of course.
4. But...

A Web Poet

A beautiful haiku.
We stumble head first
Into another Season
the leaves watch us fall.
--Tyler Knott Gregson  has become well-known on Instagram and Tumblr.

[There is] a new generation of young, digitally astute poets whose loyal online followings have helped catapult them onto the best-seller lists, where poetry books are scarce. These amateur poets are not winning literary awards, and most have never been in a graduate writing workshop.

...their appeal lies in the unpolished flavor of their verses, which often read as if they were ripped from the pages of a diary. Their poems are reaching hundreds of thousands of readers, attracting the attention of literary agents, editors and publishers, and overturning poetry’s longstanding reputation as a lofty art form with limited popular appeal.

--Alexandra Alter, NYT 11Nov15

http://tinyurl.com/WebPoetsSociety

Curiouser and Curiouser in Translation

#wordnerd #polyglot #bats

In the October 29, 2015, Wall Street Journal there is an article by Edward Rothstein titled "Curiouser and Curiouser in Translation." The article especially interested me because "Alice in a World of Wonderlands" is on my Very Short List of books that I have most loved and that have most influenced me.

If I must choose a favorite from the translations cited, I award my coveted Curiouser and Curiouser Translation  Prize to:

Twinkle, twinkle little bat!

How I wonder where your're at!

The rendition of the translation into Slovenian reads:

Along the lake

Near Mt. Triglav

A pot drifts...

I think Lewis Carroll would have appreciated this curious translation.

And we wonder why there are rifts between nations caused by misunderstanding.

Author PR

‪#‎AuthorPR‬ ‪#‎BookPromo‬ #Halloween


I think I should start a list of tips for Author and Book Promotion. If it seems to work well, I can then share the words of wisdom.

• Rule #1. Never, ever publish a selfie.

Batwoman, ready for the trick-or-treaters.

An indignant seven-year-old insisted I could not be Batwoman.

"No, no! Not Batwoman. You have to be Batman."

But he accepted my politically incorrect Almond Joy candy bar anyway.

Should Work Like a Charm

#newyorktimes #wordnerd #Halloween

When I read the last edition of the New York Times book review, it made me think I need something apotropaic for this Halloween evening. Armed and ready. Garlic works.

How Do I Really Love Thee?

What a paean to love this is, for better or for worse, from the inimitable Elizabeth Gilbert in “Committed.”* So tender--and so funny...

I love this man. I love him for countless ridiculous reasons. I love his square, sturdy, Hobbit-like feet. I love the way he always sings “La Vie en Rose” when he’s cooking dinner. (Needless to say, I love that he cooks dinner.) I love how he speaks almost perfect English but still, even after all these years with the language, sometimes manages to invent marvelous words. (“Smoothfully” is a personal favorite of mine, though I’m also fond of “lulu-bell,” which is Felipe’s own lovely translation for the word “lullaby.”)

I love that he’s never quite mastered the exact wording or pacing of certain English-language idioms either. (“Don’t count your eggs while they’re still up inside the chicken’s ass,” is a terrific example, though I’m also a big fan of “Nobody sings till the fat lady sings.”) I love that Felipe can never—not for the life him—keep straight the names of American celebrities. (“George Cruise” and “Tom Pitt” are two prime examples.)

*P. 121

#exposition #author

If exposition is on the menu,

you had better serve it right and make it tasty.

-C.Wendig

Black and White

#brasileiríssimo

Categorizing people as simply black or white is nonsensical to my sensibilities. No one is white; no one is black. When people see the color green, there is no discussion as to whether to label it yellow or blue. Mix the two and they make green. Green is green. How about describing the physical appearances we see: rich cream, luscious marzipan, perfect cafe-au-lait, rich chocolate. And for anyone interested in significant differences between people, culture is a far more important determiner of how and why they differ.

Whether writing fiction or non-fiction, I think it is more effective to describe the appearance of a person/character with visually observant and descriptive terms. When writing, I can save black and white to depict a person/character who has a narrow-minded, metaphorical black-and-white perception of the world or to demonstrate that said person/character has a categorical attitude toward race. 

The following books are helpful in understanding the very significant impact of cultural differences between people:

On Race and Culture by Thomas Sowell

Intercultural Communication by Tracy Novinger

A Conundrum

#fiction #characters

Finishing the Nth book in a thriller series (yes, I confess, that is how I escape), I was bemused. I still liked the hero despite all of his flaws apparent in the unfolding of the plot, but I found I felt annoyed with the author for some plot details that I found overly sordid. What? Feeling pro the fictitious protagonist and annoyed with the author? How ironic. What does that mean? It clearly means a tour de force by the author in creating his character. Kudos.

Making Sense

We like fiction because it often gives us the illusion that our world makes sense.

One of the most prominent characteristics of our left brain is its ability to weave stories. This story-teller portion of our left mind is specifically designed to make sense of the world outside of us, based on minimal amounts of information. It takes whatever details it has to work with, and weaves them together in the form of a story. Most impressively, our left brain is brilliant in its ability to make stuff up, and fill in the blanks when there are gaps in its factual data.

I like the above observation, paraphrased from neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. Her book "My Stroke of Insight," memoir of a stroke she suffered, allows the reader to share in the experience as seen from the inside out by a person who is better qualified than most to examine the workings of her own brain.