This blog was originally posted on Becky’s blog here:

There’s a half dead pomegranate tree in my yard. I love it. I think it’s wonderfully symbolic. It’s the craziest looking thing. There are leaves and fruit on one side and the rest of the tree just looks like a skeleton. My friends tell me I should cut away the dead so that the tree might pull through, and I will once I have a minute to dedicate to yard work. But I can’t help but feel cutting away the dead is betraying Hades.

Silly I know. I really wish I could claim this half dead pomegranate tree was my inspiration for writing Persephone, but we didn’t move to this house until last summer, and Persephone was being sent out in query letters at that point. No, my actual inspiration was much less poetical and symbolic.

It was a preview to clash of the titans. I really liked the quote “damn the gods” which got the ball rolling in my mind. The actual movie was almost as inspiring.

In that I was so bored I drafted the entire book in my head while I watched it. I left that movie, chattering endlessly about my idea to my husband and a friend, and then went home and wrote the book.

I don’t know why a movie trailer seems like an unworthy source of inspiration, but the whole story is a little embarrassing. If I ever get really famous, I might go with the more “writerly” story of inspiration.

I have a half dead pomegranate tree in my yard..