Thursday, February 7, 2013

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: For The Love Of Punishment


“The scariest thing about dredging, is the threat of not making enough money to keep doing it.” -Zeke Tenhoff, "Bering Sea Gold"

Ideas come from the strangest places.

I am a slut for the Discovery Channel.  Everything on there gives me ideas.  It's like the network execs traverse the globe looking for the biggest, baddest, most hardcore people they can find, and then make a show about them.  This fits my "tender love stories, tough people" ethos perfectly.

I love these people.  They're the kind of badasses I like to think I could have been if I hadn't settled down and had a kid.  From commercial lobstermen to miners to that guy who wrestles monster fish week after week, they are my kind of folks.

Oh, and gold dredgers.  Mustn't forget them.

"Bering Sea Gold" follows several crews of rag-tag, nuttier-than-fruitcake gold dredgers, each struggling to make a living at what is easily the craziest job on the planet: mining for gold on the floor of the Bering Sea.  It takes place in Nome, Alaska, a former gold rush boomtown that has long since lost its "boom".  There are no roads that lead to Nome from the rest of Alaska- to get there, you have to either fly or swim.  Summers last all of three months, and winters are long, dark, and bitterly cruel.

The first time I saw this show, an idea hit me so hard I nearly fell off my bed: what an awesome place to set a romance.

To be a gold dredger, you have to be tough, stubborn, and a little warped.  Just the kinds of characters I love to write about.  And people who wind up in Nome are usually there because they've exhausted all other possibilities.  What better backdrop for a love story?

Hey, I never said I wasn't a little nuts, too.

 




10 comments:

  1. I haven't watched the gold dredging show, but I've gotten hooked on weird animal shows (River Monsters I believe you were referencing), Sasquatch hunters, hoarders (yup, wrote a love story with that dynamic twisting things up), the ghosts and pets mashup...it's all good. And now I feel like watching some TV.

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  2. I love the idea of writing a romance in an absolutely unforgiving setting like that!

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    1. I love the edge it gives the story. I feel like it keeps things from getting too sappy, which can definitely happen in a romance :-)

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  3. I'd read it. I'm a sucker for those discovery type programmes too. I like Man v Wild too - just to get weird and wonderful ideas about to survive and get out of tough spots...

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    1. I'm ashamed to say I've never seen that show. Must watch...

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  4. Just make sure to plop in a few characters who absolutely shouldn't be there... and you're all set, LOL.

    Yeah, I'm a big fan of the environment/world as a character in itself. It can test all of your MCs in different ways, result in some comedy (or tragedy), and serve as an awesome device for moving the plot forward.

    Have fun with it!

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  5. I've watched that show, too! Guilty pleasure. My real secret shame, though, are the National Geographic shows about accidents and disasters. My husband calls them my "disaster porn." Thanks for joining Thursday's Children!

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    1. From one deviant to another, my pleasure entirely! ;-)

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