Tanks for the Memories

by Madelle Morgan

This month's topic is the perfect opportunity to tell you about my heroine's tense "near death experience", and how it was derived from my years as a civil engineer in Canada's far north.

In the early 1980s I managed the construction of fuel storage facilities in remote Arctic communities, accessible only by air, by ocean during the short summer, or by ice road in winter. 

Large steel tanks stored gasoline, heating oil, and aviation fuel.

I gained a very healthy respect for the explosive potential of fuel. Actually, it is the fumes that ignite in a flash, sending the whole tank up in a powerful explosion. Very foolish teens regularly scaled fences to sniff gas from hatches in the tops of these tanks. If they decided to light a cigarette, well, that was a real death experience.

I recall receiving a phone call from a contractor who flew into a remote community to gas-free and dismantle a couple of old horizontal tanks.

Contractor: "Can't do the job."

Me, sitting in an office seven hundred miles away: "Why not?"

Contractor: "Tanks blew up before I arrived."

Because of extreme low outdoor temperatures, fuel pumps at each "tank farm" were located inside small insulated prefab buildings. Here's a photo of my 1981-82 tank farm project at Paulatuk, Northwest Territories, Canada on the shore of the Beaufort Sea.

Photo Credit: James Malone, June 1, 2010

In my romantic suspense Diamond Lust, the geologist heroine and her colleague Carter have been locked into one of these fuel dispenser buildings at a diamond mine in the Canadian sub-Arctic.

Overwhelmed by the scale of the fraudulent activities that encompassed diamond production from ore excavation through processing, Petra sank to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Horvath, Security, perhaps a dozen other employees must be in on the fraud. These smugglers covered all the angles. They will never let us live. We are so screwed.”

“Didn’t you notice the AN/FO over there?”

She followed the direction of his nod to a fifty-five-pound sack wedged between two pumps, the label indicating the trade name of an ammonium nitrate blasting agent. A wave of dizziness had her chin dipping to her chest. The smugglers planned one mother of an explosion. Ignited, the dispenser building and its fuel storage tanks outside would erupt into a cataclysmic fireball.

A white ignition cord dangled from a hole poked into the side of the packaging. When the white flashes behind her eyeballs faded, she knee-walked over to the sack, and with her teeth yanked out the cord and metal blasting cap on its buried tip with the intention of gently depositing it on the floor in a far corner.

“A lot of good that’ll do. They don’t have to enter this room to start a fire. They’ll open an exterior valve to flood the ground with fuel, or drop a match into a tank, or—”

“Enough, Carter! I need to think.” Why plan a massive explosion? If eliminating her and Carter were the objective, why wait? A small fire lit at the time they were dumped in the building would have killed them quickly. “They intend to create a major diversion,” she said slowly, “to give them time to escape in the confusion.”

Of course Petra and Carter are saved by the hero in the nick of time!

Don't be Fuelish

Before stepping out of the vehicle at a gas station, please leave cell phones and any device that can create a spark or flame inside the vehicle. Don't smoke! Even static electricity can potentially ignite fumes that have collected around the fuel pumps. Be aware. Be safe.

Bio

The spark for Madelle's debut novel, Diamond Lust, was the astonishing discovery of high quality diamonds in Canada's far north. She "mined" her northern experiences to write a romantic suspense about diamond smuggling. Diamond Lust is currently unavailable, but a second edition will be released by January, 2015. www.madellemorgan.com

It's a Matter of Life or Death!

by Madelle Morgan

Source: trueclassics.net

Yeah, action-adventure stories are big on drama. I write romantic suspense, which is action-adventure fiction with a romance subplot. 

Besides the oh-so-important romance between the hero and heroine, in my opinion a good action story has to include the following:

An Important Goal

At least, the goal has to be important to the characters. If they don’t attain their goal, something REALLY BAD will happen.

Time Pressure

You’ll recognize these time pressure plot devices:

• Race against time to stop something before disaster happens.
• Catch the killer before he strikes again.
• Outwit the bad guys to be first to get the MacGuffin*.

*From Wikipedia, “a MacGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues”. Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term. George Lucas described a MacGuffin as “the object of everybody’s search.” Well known MacGuffins include the golden ring in Lord of the Rings, the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and in Star Wars, R2D2 – the robot with the secret plans. 

In my novel Diamond Lust, the MacGuffin – what the desperate smugglers are after, and will kill to obtain – is, you guessed it, diamonds. 

Non-stop Action

The story must be packed with page-turning, adrenaline-pumping events that get the hero and heroine into worse and worse trouble. Typical action sequences could include one or more of: an Abduction; a Chase; a Theft; an Escape; a Rescue; an Explosion; a Fight; etc.

Mountie Dudley Do-Right Saves his love Nell from Snidely Whiplash

The More Danger, the Better

The more complications the author adds and the more in doubt a happy ending, the more exciting the story will be. When writing the pivotal Black Moment scene in Diamond Lust, I used an abduction, fight, explosion and attempted rescue to ramp up nail-biting tension.

Diamond Lust excerpt set up: Heroine Petra is bound and tossed into a fuel dispenser building at the diamond mine along with her old buddy Carter.

“These smugglers covered all the angles. They will never let us live. We are so screwed,” Petra moaned.

“Didn’t you notice the AN/FO over there?”

She followed the direction of his nod to a fifty-five-pound sack wedged between two fuel pumps, the label indicating the trade name of an ammonium nitrate blasting agent. A wave of dizziness had her chin dipping to her chest. The smugglers planned one mother of an explosion. Ignited, the dispenser building and its fuel storage tanks outside would erupt into a cataclysmic fireball.

A white ignition cord dangled from a hole poked into the side of the packaging. When the white flashes behind her eyeballs faded, she knee-walked over to the sack, and with her teeth yanked out the cord and metal blasting cap on its buried tip with the intention of gently depositing it on the floor in a far corner.

“A lot of good that’ll do. They don’t have to enter this room to start a fire. They’ll open an exterior valve to flood the ground with fuel, or drop a match into a tank, or—”

“Enough, Carter! I need to think.” Why plan a massive explosion? If eliminating her and Carter was the objective, why wait? A small fire lit at the time they were dumped in the building would have killed them quickly. 

“They intend to create a major diversion,” she said slowly, “to give them time to escape in the confusion.”

Will Mountie Seth Cooper fly to the rescue of his love Petra before the diamond smugglers blow her to smithereens? Find out by reading Diamond Lust!

Diamond Lust is available in print and e-formats. The digital version is a steal at $1.49 or less at retailers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Ellora’s Cave, etc. See www.madellemorgan.com for more info. 

Tweet the sweet deal!

From Page To Screen

By Marie Lilly
 

I thought it would be an easy peasy assignment--to adapt Madelle Morgan’s romance novel 

Marie Lilly

"Diamond Lust” into a screenplay, that is.  After all, Madelle did what I considered to be the hardest part--creating an engaging story from nothing more than an idea. 

 DL has a strong and sympathetic hero in Petra Paris--a feisty geologist on a secret mission to gather evidence from an isolated diamond mine in the Northwest Territories of Canada.  Her undercover cop Love Interest, Seth Lunden, is a Han Solo at his finest, and his relationship with Petra sizzles with tension.  The sub-arctic summer vistas Madelle lovingly and intimately describes made me want to go there, and her dialogue made me smile.

My first marketable draft of Rough Diamonds (the screenplay version of DL) was a romance movie very faithful to the source material.  It was immediately requested for consideration by a movie star’s production company and the response was mercifully quick:  my screenplay wasn’t what they were looking for, try the Hallmark channel instead.  My translation:  "We are looking for great scripts for our leading man to star in.  The star of your script is a woman." 

Then a local director read RD and offered to direct and produce it.   But first, he wanted to see a South African character in it.  I added an Afrikaaner, raised the stakes and created international conflict.  Seth became the main character and Petra became his Love Interest.  RD was elevated from a small screen suspenseful romance to a big screen detective story.

As of today we are continuing to develop the director's vision.  Throughout the story variations we've played with, Madelle's winning concept and characterizations for Petra and Seth survive intact.  Hmmm, if RD becomes an international hit, maybe she'll write a sequel...

 

Daddy's Girl

by Madelle Morgan

She was Daddy’s girl... until her father took up with a twenty-two year old.

What happens when Daddy has an affair and leaves the family? And what if the daughter discovers Daddy may be a crook?

Petra, the heroine of Diamond Lust, shut her father, Edward Paris, out of her life when he divorced his wife to marry the lab assistant half his age. Petra’s thirteen year old heart turned to stone, fractured from the hurt, the anger, the sense of abandonment. She learned that to love was to feel agonizing pain, and vowed to guard her heart.

After Petra grew up and began working as a geologist, she avoided romantic relationships. Her boss, Hank Horvath, became a father figure. Her work buddy Carter Lee became the brother she never had.  Because her father left.

Petra shifted her loyalties to her new “family”.  But then media reports accuse Edward Paris of falsifying the number of diamonds found in exploratory drill core, thereby fraudulently misrepresenting the value of the Ptarmigan Diamond Mine. Investors stand to lose millions. Only fresh analysis by an independent lab will validate her father’s honesty and save him from prison.

Is her father a cheat across the board? Petra must know the truth. She agrees to collect new drill core for testing. Unfortunately desperate men at the remote mine site in the Canadian Arctic have no intention of letting her succeed.

Stranded at the fly-in only mine, Petra is betrayed by those she thought had her back. 

She falls like a rock for an undercover cop she’s afraid to trust. 

She dodges hidden enemies who’d kill for stolen diamonds. 

She faces the uncomfortable truth that her father had steadfastly loved a daughter who refused to accept that love.

Is it worth her life to clear her father’s name?

What would you do for your father? Would he do the same for you?

U.S., Canada and U.K.

www.madellemorgan.com

My True Confession

by Madelle Morgan

What do you do when you’re a closet romance writer in a male-dominated profession and your first romance is published?

Back then I, a senior professional engineer and manager, had not informed my own employees, boss, colleagues nor industry clients that I wrote romance (and never intended to).

THEN  (drum roll…)

Soon after the print version became available, an amazing opportunity arose to sell copies of my debut romantic suspense Diamond Lust at my workplace annual charity fund-raising event. The offer included posters of my book cover plastered beside elevators throughout the 2,000 employee complex. Dozens of those employees were geologists, mining industry scientists and technologists — the ideal target audience for a novel about diamond mining in Canada’s far north.

BUT  (cue sad violin music…)

A manager needs respect, right? I’d acquired hard won credentials to counteract male chauvinism that had dogged me throughout my career. I’d been called Blondie, hit on in my younger, thinner days, and in two different jobs was assigned to a two man survey crew as a superfluous third until I proved myself, when I had exactly the same expertise as my male classmates. 

Madelle at 22

One summer I assisted two civil engineering professors with surveying and water samples in a remote area. 

One of them said to me, “I wouldn’t allow my daughter to do this work.” What did he expect the women in his classes to do with their degrees – sit at home and build bridges with Lego?

In 1987 I was the first woman in Canada to graduate from a civil engineering Master’s degree program in Construction Project Management. While searching for a new job, with five years of project experience and a construction boom underway, I was repeatedly fed the line, “We’re not hiring at this time.” At a very brief job interview a condo construction company executive asked, “What will you do with your child?” Apparently he’d never heard of daycare. I didn’t get the job.

Needless to say, for decades I only exhibited my logical, analytical left brain self at work in order to claw my way up the pay scale in line with male counterparts. I hid my creative ultra-feminine writer alter ego from co-workers. Meanwhile, naturally I incorporated occupational knowledge into my novels, as do other professionals such as MDs, forensic pathologists and lawyers who write commercial fiction.

Then my professional career and the opportunity to promote my romantic suspense novel at work collided. (Cue crashing cymbals...)

Dare I make my True Confession?

The excellent opportunity for Diamond Lust publicity was too good to miss.

(Ta da da DAH!) The Big Reveal of my romance writer persona to those in my professional life. I sold quite a few print copies at that charity book sale, including to men with whom I worked.

In the dark hours of second-guessing my decision — OMG, have the guys read the massage scene? What was I thinking? — I realized that the respect of those who “didn’t approve”, and indeed there were several, didn’t matter to me anymore. Besides, how many books had they published, eh?

At that point my two personas finally merged! I’m a romance author AND an engineer. To validate that, fans subsequently downloaded more than 100,000 copies of my free short story The Next Big Thing, which describes an engineer’s very sexy invention.

Do you think making my True Confession years earlier, instead of when early retirement was on the horizon, would have risked my professional credibility? What would you have done and why?

Postscript: Diamond Lust is only $1.49 in the Kindle and Nook Book stores, and $0.99 at Ellora’s Cave.

Keys to Lasting Love

Madelle Morgan

Today is my first post as a Genre-ista blogger. Thank you so much, Judith and Sarah, for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you all every month!

I write contemporary romance and romantic suspense, with one novel and a free short story published by Ellora’s Cave and several more projects “in development”. I retired from my day job as a civil engineer and manager last June, and it is so wonderful to have ample time to write and read those wonderful books I’d purchased but have been too busy to read. My husband counted over 100 books piled on my bureau alone! Fortunately it’s a very cold, stay-indoors type of winter up here in Ontario, Canada.

The topic this month is favorite romances. Well, like many avid lovers of romance I cannot pick just one. So I decided to describe three key elements of a great romance.

1. Chemistry

Chemistry comes from powerful emotional and physical attraction. Years ago Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had smoldering chemistry on screen and off. Their marital splits and reconciliations made headlines. Today Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison (Bella and Edward) are the new Liz and Richard – they have a great love that endures despite indiscretions. Or will it? That brings us to the next key element, the lack of which often drives a stake in the heart of passionate love.

2. Tolerance of Quirks and Faults

Abuse and infidelity respectively throw cold water on a steamy relationship, extinguishing it for good. On the lighter side, if a couple can adjust to each other’s annoying habits, personality quirks and faults, they have a chance of making it as a couple.

Dr. Temperance Brennan, the female lead character in the TV series Bones, likely has Asperger Syndrome or something similar in the autism spectrum of disorders. It makes her emotionally disconnected. Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz, the hunk we crushed on in Buffy and Angel), loves and accepts this beautiful but coldly rational woman despite her difficulty in being passionate and empathetic. Her logical mind, on the other hand, grounds him. Bones in turn tolerates what seems to her to be Booth’s excessively emotional behavior.

3. Opposites Attract

It’s not enough that the partners have very different personalities. In lasting relationships each person has traits that fill a lack(s) or need(s) in the other. The two personalities fit together like one of those wood 3D puzzles. Together they are whole, complete. Apart they feel like a piece is missing.

In The Big Bang Theory, the Penny and Leonard characters exemplify this crucial aspect of a great romance. Pretty, loving, living-month-to-month Penny has emotional intelligence and street smarts. Love-starved Leonard has intellectual intelligence, a stable job, and is reliable and loyal. They fill each other’s most basic needs for love and security.

What do you think is essential for an enduring romantic relationship? In honor of my first Genre-ista post and Valentine’s Day I’m giving away a print copy of my romantic suspense Diamond Lust to one commentor who lives in the US or Canada.  The deadline for comments is midnight on Sunday, February 17^th!

Postscript:

Who loves diamonds? Madelle’s debut romantic suspense Diamond Lust ebook is available for only $0.99. 

Coming soon, Madelle is working on another romantic suspense novel (the story of Sophia from the free short read The Next Big Thing) and a steamy novella. 

Find Madelle at www.madellemorgan.com and on Goodreads.