polynesia « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘polynesia’

The Kiribati Revelation

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

I’ve been to Kiribati. I just found that out over the weekend.

I did know I’d been to Fanning Island. I was just unaware that Fanning Island belonged to the country of Kiribati. Next time I’ll have to check my passport more closely and see who stamps it.

It’s actually kind of sad. Because I work for an airline, my geography skills are pretty strong. It’s all self-taught, too. When I was in school, they quit teaching geography when I was in the second grade. That isn’t enough time to learn more than some of the United States. World geography? Forget about it.

iTunes U had some free geography classes from Stanford’s Continuing Education program that were outstanding. I learned even more there than I’d picked up on my own. If you’re interested, I highly recommend these classes–they were awesome! Not all of them are available any longer, though, which is sad since they used to have three or four.

Then there’s Sporcle.com. They have geography quizzes. Some of them include naming all the countries in Africa, Oceania, Europe, and so on. I did these in preparation for the big quiz–naming all the countries in the world.

There are 195 countries. I can name all of them, but I still didn’t realize that I’d been to Kiribati.

So how did I make my grandiose discovery? My cousins were up over the weekend and they’d been on this same trip with me. Two of them were wearing their Fanning Island T-shirts and one of them said “Fanning Island – Republic of Kiribati.” And I went oooohhhh!

Yes, I am easily excited, but you have to enjoy the small stuff. The other thing is that because of one of my Works In Progress (WIP), I have a fascination with all things Polynesian happening right now. I have to find my pictures from Kiribati so I can post some for you, but it’ll have to wait till I finish the proposal I’m working on.

Tags: polynesia, travel
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Rugby and the Haka

Monday, August 17th, 2009

This weekend I was back into the Work In Progress (WIP). As it turns out, my hero is a rugby fan, particularly the New Zealand All Blacks team. Since I don’t know thing one about rugby, I’ve had to do some research. I still don’t know the game, but I did discover that the All Blacks do the haka before each of their international matches. It started in the late 1800s, if I remember correctly. If not, it was right around the turn of the century, so it’s a tradition that goes back a long way.

There are a lot of cool videos of the All Blacks doing the haka on You Tube including some where the Somoan and Tongan teams do their own version of the haka right back at them. I’m afraid I didn’t learn the names of their dances in my research.

I’m going to share one of the videos of the haka here. It’s short, just slightly over one minute, and the quality is pretty good. The best part, though, is that there are subtitles at the bottom that explain what the players are saying and giving a little context on the dance.

Tags: haka, polynesia, rugby, WIP
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Hivinau

Friday, July 31st, 2009

I received copy edits today for my April 2010 release, In the Darkest Night. This is a little earlier than I thought they were going to show up and I’m going to be really busy for the next 2 to 2.5 weeks.

In that vein, I’ll try to answer comments over the weekend, but I’m not going to have time tonight. Also, I didn’t get a chance to write a blog post today, so I thought I’d share a video. This is the hivinau dance from Tahiti and it makes me think of the Work In Progress (WIP).

Hivinau
Uploaded by danzaspolinesiasoriata – Arts and animation videos.

Tags: polynesia, video
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Research Bonanza

Friday, November 30th, 2007

It was more research yesterday. I found the Actors Equity union website, and as luck would have it, they have their contracts posted in PDF files! Yea! So now I have a general idea what kind of money my heroine would earn as a dancer. That’s a huge help because I was absolutely clueless and this will play a role in what kind of home she owns.

I didn’t read the entire contract, but it was really interesting to see what kind of things it covered. Costumes, who cleans them, how often they’re cleaned, who provides dance shoes, etc. One of the really surprising things for me was how little these performers make. I really thought that if they were good enough to be hired at that level that they’d be earning more. Wow.

But that’s really good information to have. Now I know that my heroine isn’t going to have a lot of extra money and that this probably isn’t a job she’s going to stay at forever. Of course, now I need to figure out what position a Polynesian dancer would aspire to hold.

More research to follow.

Tags: polynesia, research
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Polynesian Problems

Monday, November 12th, 2007

The gardens are now all winter-ready and my outside chores should be about finished. Yea! Of course, it took hours more work on Sunday to reach this point, but it was a nice day–I was able to be outside without my jacket on–and that made it almost pleasurable to be out there. If I was sitting on the deck with a book, then it would have been completely pleasurable, but to work? Nah.

I spent untold hours over the weekend searching for 1) my heroine’s name and 2) a picture of the hero. I have a picture of him that might kind of work, but I don’t love it. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it is to find a picture of a man who’s half Maori. And nearly all the Maori pictures I’ve found have had the men’s faces painted/tattooed, which is a problem because my hero doesn’t have any tattoos on his face. Elsewhere–yes. Face–no. Why aren’t there more pictures of sexy half Polynesian men with ripped abs turning up in my searches?

The name thing continues to drag on. I’ve checked out every link and every suggestion people have sent me (and I’ve had a lot), but none of them are producing results. I think my heroine is deliberately holding back because she has issues about love. I’ve probably seen her name a dozen times, but she won’t claim it. I think–and I could be wrong–that her name is something soft like Jessamine or Isabelle. Actually, it might be Isabelle. At least that’s what I’m using when I write today. If she doesn’t like it, she can lodge a protest. More to follow as I know it.

Tags: characters, garden, polynesia
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And On We Go

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

I’m counting Monday as a success. I finished the prologue–the first draft of it anyway–to my Polynesian story and I did a newsletter. I’m trying to do one every quarter, but it’s tough sometimes. I scheduled it to go out this morning.

I still don’t have a name for my Polynesian heroine, and it’s now become critical that I come up with one because chapter one is in her POV. The Tahitian names aren’t working for her, but I found a website that said French names are very popular there. Now I have to investigate that and see if something doesn’t appeal to her there. Honestly, it’s so much easier when they just tell me their names and save me from having to go through all this!

Did I mention that I spent some time this weekend watching my research DVDs for this story? I still have three more to watch and I’d like to do that this week.

I think that’s all I have. Mostly a boring day yesterday, but it was fairly productive for a change and maybe I remembered how to write after all.

Tags: polynesia, writing
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ia ora na

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

The project I’ve been working on is a futuristic (or SFR if you prefer). My characters have been minimally cooperative and I have very little information about them or their story. I want more. So–of course–my Polynesian couple unloaded with a boatload of details today. Do I have to tell you that they’re not in the futuristic? I didn’t think so.

I still don’t have their names or where the story takes place, but I know what their jobs are, I know how they meet, and I know they both have tattoos. Deciding to go with the flow, I researched yesterday during my lunch hour instead of reading and then I did more research when I got home. The tattoo situation for him is going to be interesting. The Maori consider ta moko important to their culture and do not like it when people who aren’t Maori take their designs. My hero is half Maori, but grew up in the US and I’m not quite sure what the rules are in relation to him. That was one of the items I was trying to figure out Tuesday. I might end up having to email someone who’s Maori to ask. I hate contacting strangers out of the blue–even if their email addresses are associated with websites–and asking questions. I’ve done it before, but…. It’s that shyness thing again.

Anyway, he’s pretty damn hot. IMO, of course. He’s also been through an ordeal and is still trying to heal from it. More research upcoming on that front. The book opens in his Point of View with a prologue–at least in my head it does. I try to stay away from prologues, but I haven’t been altogether successful with that. I figure I’ll write this story the way it’s coming in and worry about whether or not I need a prologue later.

The other thing I’m not 100% certain of is the suspense element and what’s driving the plot. That I’m not too worried about yet. It’s early yet in this story’s development and I usually get the characters first, everything else later.

So here I am, trying to focus on one world and hearing characters from another story. Do you want to bet that when I try to focus on my Polynesian couple that they go silent?

BTW, in case you wondered, the title of this blog post is Reo ma’ohi for “hello.” (That’s the Tahitian language according to a quick online search.)

Tags: characters, polynesia
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Tattooing

Friday, June 15th, 2007

I didn’t think my half Polynesian hero had any tattoos, but I found out differently. So today, during lunch at the EDJ, I started looking up information on Maori tattoos. Most of them dealt with facial designs which are very significant and important to them (Ta Moko), but I knew he wouldn’t get any of those because he grew up in America and he’d want to fly under the radar. I think he might be ex-special forces, but he’s still not talking. I turned up some interesting information on tribal tattoos, though, and bookmarked them for later reading. His heroine always had a tattoo and I discovered that turns him on.

My revisions weren’t on the doorstep Thursday when I got home and I really expected them to be there. Boy, I hope they come today because I really want the weekend to work on them. It’s funny, but every single time I get revisions, it’s like I forget how to do them and I get overwhelmed. Then it’s like I take a step back, decide to take it one scene at a time, and somehow it all makes sense.

Since I didn’t have my edits, I took a nap. My second three hour nap in two days. I must really be tired. I was groggy after I woke up, but that didn’t matter since I had nothing in particular to do except water my flowers. Some of my lilies are not doing well. I thought the bulbed ones would be okay, but not all of them are and that’s unfortunate.

Tags: characters, plants, polynesia, revisions
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Stubborn Darn Characters

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

I’m still reading my book on Polynesian mythology. I’m finding some of the information very interesting, but my heroine (and her hero) still aren’t talking to me. It’s very frustrating because I can sense them there and I want to know what their story is, but I get nothing. I’m wondering if this is payback because I made her go away while I was writing In the Midnight Hour?

It’s very frustrating because until one of my characters tells me or shows me what’s going on, I’m clueless. Right now, I’m wishing I was one of those writers who was able to come up with the story, but it’s never worked that way for me.

I might have mentioned this before, but take Midnight Hour as an example. I had the premise behind Deke’s curse years ago, but I had nothing beyond that. It was a cool idea and one I wanted to write, but not only couldn’t I hear Deke, I had no clue who his heroine was. Fast forward to Ryne’s appearance. When she came in, she told me about her people. Lots and lots of information about her people. I didn’t know for a long time that she was Deke’s heroine. As soon as I realized that was who she was, the story started coming together.

So here I sit, reading the mythology book and waiting for this heroine to give me more than the fact that she’s half Tahitian. I guess it doesn’t much matter, though, since I have revisions coming and that would shunt her aside again anyway. It’s just that my curiosity is driving me crazy!

Tags: characters, midnight_hour, polynesia
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Oh, I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay…

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

With apologies to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, that song title was just too perfect not to use.

I had some fun last night. What falls down must be cleaned up, so there I was with these huge clipper things cutting branches off the downed tree. The trunk that fell is still attached to the tree itself, maybe 15-20 feet up, so we had to be careful not to bring the whole thing down on us as we worked. Anyway, the tree is stripped as high as I could reach with the clippers and what’s left will have to be tackled by someone else. My dad ran everything through a chipper so now there’s more mulch and I’m not sore this morning.

It’s an absolutely beautiful morning here today. The sun is shining, there’s a gentle breeze, humidity is low, and temperatures are comfortable. I have the windows open and I’m sitting here thinking, wow, wouldn’t it be nice if every day could be like this?

Anyway, I’ve been trying to stay off the computer when I’m at home. I’m on it so much when I’m writing and I’m on it all day at work, that I feel like I need to make an effort to sever the connection with I’m home. It’s gotten tough, though, to keep up with email and with MySpace. How do other people keep up with everything and not spend every waking minute on the computer?

Today, my local chapter meets and I plan to attend. I don’t think I’ve been to a meeting since January because of the book I just turned in. I needed those Saturdays to write–desperately–but I missed getting together with everyone. When I get home, I plan to spend the rest of the day outside. Now that my deck is stained, I can put out my flower boxes and lounge chair, hang my wind spinner, and hopefully, get my bug zapper put together and out, too.

And I’m finding my Polynesian mythology book very interesting. I’m only through the first chapter which covers the history of most of the islands in the Polynesian Triangle, but that was nearly riveting. I’m about 90% sure that my heroine is part Tahitian and that the hero is part Maori, but I didn’t get that from reading the book. I suspected it back around the time she first popped into my head, and that sense has become surer over time. I still have no story for the two of them, but I’m itching to know what it is.

Tags: computer, email, life, myspace, polynesia
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