Guest Post by Diana Hart
When I started writing Cauliflower Heart, back around 2009, I was really quite depressed. I found that writing about my life was very therapeutic. I started writing from an autobiographical point of view, then found I was happier writing things from a fictional aspect. I didn’t want to hurt anyone by saying specific things, which of course, often are misunderstood. I already have had enough of that to last a lifetime. Then I switched my point of view to that of animals, writing a wrestling story with animals like cats, dogs, roosters, mice, pigs, goats, frogs, badgers, etc. being the characters. I had written a lot about the big wrestling match between the Komodo dragon and the dog, with the rooster as the promoter and the cats becoming tag-team partners to dragon and the dog.
My son Harry was quite on board with that. But I lost my train of thought with it and just couldn’t seem to get it to make sense. I put the whole thing away for a few weeks, always thinking about how to return to it. Eventually, I started bouncing ideas off my daughter and got back into writing it, but this time, it was with human characters, and I decided to write a love story based around the world of wrestling. Not so much different than a love story taking place during Pearl Harbor, or a romance that revolves around a music business.
I got much of my inspiration for my characters from people I knew or felt like I knew. I didn’t always meet infamous people whose personalities I drew from when creating my characters, but I had them described so well to me by my mom or people in my family, I really could picture them in my head. My whole family are wonderful story tellers. I can see this gift in many of my nieces and nephews too. My mom was a brilliant story teller. I see that in my brother Bret too. I am learning, and enjoy any chance I get to talk about my life. This book, Cauliflower Heart, is not specifically about my life, but there are many parallels, which I feel is fair to say when anyone writes. Often, to write well, you write about what you know. In my case, I write about the world of wrestling, and a love story to go inside that world. It happens, so people shouldn’t think this story isn’t for them because it has romance in it. Isn’t there romance in every life, at some point? I think there is.
I didn’t base any character on any one person. I did sometimes envision the Rock in the ring personality of Toasty Bonham, where he has the fans eating out of his hand when he gets on the microphone. I sometimes thought of the Dynamite Kid and my nephew Teddy Hart in his character. But Toasty is perhaps the greatest mixture of people I have met in my life. He is a bit of many male figures who have been prominent in my life. From my brothers to nephews to in-laws to wrestlers who went through the Dungeon training sessions and went on to become memorable performers in wrestling in their own way, outside of the Harts. I will always be proud of those guys. They inspired me to create Toasty.
The other characters are of Claudine Bellamy, who is the protagonist in CH is perhaps based a little on my niece Natalya and Drew Bellamy is based a little on Natalya’s husband Tyson. Claudine and Drew are childhood sweethearts and he is adopted into the Bonham Family and later marries Claudine. That love story is a little like Natalya and Tyson. It is a little like Davey and me, but not exact or specific to either relationship. I was just inspired by what I saw or experienced and relayed that into these two characters.
The mom and dad (Louisa and Billy Bonham) in CH are a little like my own mom and dad, Helen and Stu Hart, and perhaps like my sister Georgia and her husband BJ. The strong comradery I saw from a distance between Linda and Vince McMahon (owners of the WWE) is also like the bond between Louisa and Billy and their British wrestling promotion (Imperial Wrestling Federation), they operate from within their family home in Warrington, England.
There must be a closeness and a love for one another to work together and be married and live where you work. In wrestling, it is a 24/7, or a 356/52 deal, where there are no breaks, no time-outs. Like politics, it does not end at 5:00. In wrestling, like in a marriage, it is for a lifetime. With my parents, and the McMahons, and my sister Georgia and her husband who ran a gym and lived in it at the same time, there were no intermissions, and your life was there for everyone to see because your business and livelihood revolved around where you lived. In wrestling, and politics, you live where you work and you live your life based on where you are.
I legitimately was able to write from experience about being on the road, but I incorporated what I was lucky enough to be a part of, and translate that into the lives of the two wrestling lads, Toasty Bonham and his partner Drew Bellamy. I saw fights on the road, fights in the Dungeon at my home in Calgary, and I saw the politics that went on. In Stampede Wrestling, the Hart Family wrestling promotion in Calgary, the fight for control was intense at times.
The people fighting for the head position were very smart and tactical. It was a very good learning process for me. I wish I was as cagey as some of the guys that went through my father’s territory. I learned a lot from my father’s way of handling them, and how he could turn their genuine aggressive ambition into making a lot of money for everyone. But there was always a lot to juggle, from touchy egos to clumsy wrestlers to injuries to nasty reporters.
I just admire so much how my mom and dad raised my brothers and sisters within an industry that is one of the most ruthless, yet most loyal and courageous forms of work I think there is in existence. My parents really did a good job with what they had. They really did a good job. So, I was inspired to write about a little family in England who promoted a wrestling business based on integrity, and how they made it work, through thick and thin. It is a bit like my life growing up, but to describe my whole life, I will need an entire series, not just a trilogy to explain it all, in fictional terms.
I hope you will like my story, Cauliflower Heart: A Romantic Wrestler, Book 1 of 3. I plan to write more and of course, they will all be romance-based wrestling novels. I promise to keep you guessing, even if you think you heard it all before, or saw it all on TV. My mind is like a 3-ring circus and it will not be write for the sake of being predictable. I am inspired to write to surprise you. If you give my work a read, I think you will agree. Thanks.
Title: Cauliflower Heart: A Romantic Wrestler
Author: Diana Hart
She feels protected and cared for and she likes it that way.
When circumstances change, however, Claudine finds herself unprotected and alone.
First in the Cauliflower Heart trilogy, A Romantic Wrestler, introduces Claudine Bellamy, who thinks she has the perfect life. She has a superstar-wrestling husband, and her family enjoys all of the perks of celebrity.
But when life grows bitter and Claudine’s husband needs help, will she be strong enough to save him?
About the Author
Trainer, writer, and artist Diana Hart Smith was born into Stu and Helen Hart’s legendary pro wrestling family in 1963 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Diana studied Fine Arts at the University of Calgary before performing in the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), then known as The WWF (World Wrestling Federation) alongside her late husband Davey Boy Smith (The British Bulldog), late brother Owen Hart, and brother Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart.
In 2001, whilst based in Tampa, Florida, Diana’s autobiography Under The Mat made Alberta’s top ten non-fiction best-seller list. She has two children, Harry, who wrestles all over the world as Davey Boy Smith Jr, and Georgia, an actress and voice over artist based in England. Diana now resides back home, in Calgary.
Diana’s website: http://www.officialdianahart.com/
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