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Guest Post with Jennie Nash, author of The Only True Genius in the Family
February 4th, 2009
I’d like to welcome Jennie Nash to Peeking Between the Pages. I had the pleasure of reviewing her novel The Only True Genius in the Family and loved it. You can read my review of it here. Read on to enjoy a guest post from Jennie on what she believes a true genius to be…
One of the strange things about writing a novel is that you do it mostly alone in a room. I sit here day after day in my pumpkin-colored office, typing away on my keyboard. (I just realized the other day that the print on the “L” key and the “M” key are starting to fade away, and this keyboard isn’t that old!) No one peers over my shoulder, and I create in the calm and the quiet, trying to get the scenes right and the dialogue right and the whole thing between the mother and daughter right. When the book is published, however, not many people ask about the dialogue or the scenes. They ask what the story means; they want me to talk about my story – which makes perfect sense. It’s the same thing I have spent my life as a reader doing – enjoying a story, immersing myself in it, and then coming up for air and thinking, so what’s the point? What does it all mean?
One of the questions I’m being asked about most often with The Only True Genius in the Family is what I believe true genius to be. A perfectly fair question, right? But a really hard one to answer! Philosophers and great thinkers have been pondering that question, or questions like it, for thousands of years. In coming up with what to say, I thought about my main character, Claire, a woman who is plagued by doubt about her ability to make art. She is caught between her famous photographer father and her painting prodigy daughter, and she is convinced that genius skipped a generation in their family. Claire could have bowed out of the family business. She could have said, “I think I’ll become an accountant, instead, or a marathon runner or a CEO of a multinational corporation.” But she didn’t. She felt called to make art, and she fought for the right to do it—a right that she had to grant to herself.
What Claire finds, in the end, is her own creative voice. Instead of worrying about her dad or her daughter or what anyone thinks, she just makes something because it feels right and good. That’s what I think true genius is: figuring out what you are meant to do, daring to do it, and feeling wholly alive in the process.
Jennie, thanks so much for stopping in at Peeking Between the Pages. I wish you every success with your novel The Only True Genius in the Family. It’s a wonderful novel! You can purchase Jennie’s book here in the US and here in Canada. You can also make a visit to her website here. Thanks everyone for popping in to read Jennie’s guest post. Leave some comment love for her if you’d like…
Great post! I love that’s she’s wearing out her l and me keys.
I’m a hard typer so I wear out all of my keyboard keys before their time. Love her post. I especially love what she said there at the end
“figuring out what you are meant to do, daring to do it, and feeling wholly alive in the process.”
So true.
She has a great definition of true genius. It really does take a lot of courage to find and do the things that you are meant to do!
It’s the figuring out part that is (for some) the hardest thing to do though. I think it really helps when you can be passionate in the choices and decisions you make about your life.
Great guest post–it’s always nice to get a peek into the genius behind a book!
Fantastic guest blog – how did you manage to get the author on your blog? It is so interesting to read what the writer has to say about their books and their writing processes.
Thanks to Darlene for inviting me to post today, and for featuring my book. I didn’t realize that keyboards wearing out was a trend!In any case, I’m glad you guys liked my words about genius.
I love Jennie’s definition of genius!
great post! its always interesting hearing about the authors writing process.
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/
What a great post!! Loved it!
I like the word courage, but is figuring out what you were meant to do, what feels right and good to you, always genius? Couldn’t it be merely obstinate perseverence?
Jennie, thanks again for stopping by and thanks again for a great book. I hope it does really well.
Kathy, I wore out a few keys on my old laptop. I’m sure I will on this one too.
Ti, Janel, Wanda, Alyce— I love what she said too. Isn’t that what all of us need to do-figure out what we’re meant to do. I wish I had spent more time doing that when I was younger. I think I would have dared to do more then versus now.
Scrap Girl, thanks. Many of the authors are absolutely great about working with bloggers. If you review a book of theirs, many are happy to do a guest post for even more exposure. I find too it’s a nice way to learn more about them personally.
Naida, thanks. Yes lots of people love to read about the writing process. I’m always curious too how they come up with their stories and actually get them on paper. I have lots of ideas, they just never make it anywhere else. lol.
April, thanks
Jeanne, you could be right. Sometimes it just takes sticking with something to figure out what you really want.