What Inspires the Healing Garden, My Part of the Anthology, Bliss
by Marcy Waldenville
Inspiration is a tricky bugger. I wish I could sit here and say that mine comes from some deep personal well of creativity… but I can’t. I have been inspired by songs and movies and the sight of two people walking hand in hand in a mall. And every now and then I am inspired by what I can only terms as Mental Rants. It was the odd combination of two of my rants which, oddly enough, lead to my contribution to Bliss.
The first rant was about the HMS Titanic. I’ve had a picture of the great ship on my inspiration board for some time, but never actually had a good feeling about it. I’ve heard it said there is a sense of romance about the night the ship sank. One of the highest grossing films in history was all about that very thing. But I have to admit, I never found anything particularly romantic about it. It was always just sad. Such a tremendous amount of sorrow and loss always overrode any softer emotions for me. The arrogance of a few cost so many, so much. I usually ended up feeling really crappy about the whole story.
The second rant was all about Downton Abbey.
I admit to being one of the 24 million of us who love all things Downton. The opening scene where Lord Grandville is reading the paper about the sinking of the Titanic set the whole thing in that rather dark part of my brain.
And here comes the rant. Downton began killing people off. I was furious, hurt, vexed and just plain pissed off. I walked around fuming about writers who callously kill off the kindest and sweetest of their characters and let the mean, spiteful, selfish ones live. I was absolutely childish about it.
Then I put on my thinking tiara… yes, I actually have one of those… and I got to work rewriting these two tremendous injustices.
My story is about a Titanic Widow, a sweet, kind, loving girl caught up in a loss so big and so traumatic that she is very nearly swallowed by her grief. Those who love her help her see that there is much to live for, including the unborn child she now carries and a patch if equally sad land that needs new life. Add a handsome young man with no money and a price on his head, my own front yard garden and filter it through the slightly rosy glass of my imagination and the result was The Healing Garden.
I hope this story inspires something for the reader. Maybe their own interest in the true story of the Titanic, a need to sit through a marathon of Downton Abbey, or better yet to plant a few seeds in their own front yard. Even a rant that leads to a story of their own would tickle me pink. After all inspiration is tricky and should never be wasted.
Five authors contribute five novellas to this romantic collection set over centuries, in one home on the Albemarle Sound.
Home is where the heart is…
One stately residence on North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. Five stories of heart-warming romance. Told against the backdrop of the Civil War, the loss of an unsinkable ship, the patriotic zeal of the second world war, the heart-rending conflict of Vietnam, and the thrill of modern day Nascar, Jamie Denton, S. K. McClafferty, Kathleen Shoop, Marcy Waldenville, and J. D. Wylde deliver a variety pack of poignant, sexy, and sweet.
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Genre – Romance
Rating – R
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