An Interview With Jake Frankel
They have to understand their audience. I worked as a psychoanalytical psychotherapist for children and their families and met all sorts of people, some whom it would be easy to dismiss as lazy, drunken, irresponsible or stupid. And yet, once you found out what they were dealing with in their lives, you could see why they appeared so inadequate. I doubted that I would have done any better, in their shoes. A wide experience of all sorts of people is invaluable because you have to fit in with their expectations just enough to lull them into feeling comfortable, before you are able to introduce new ideas. No one wants to be bludgeoned over the head with new concepts and unfamiliar ideas. Gently is the way to go.
As part of my series about “How to write a book that sparks a movement” I had the pleasure of interviewing Jenny Rook.
Jenny is an acclaimed author and a psychoanalytical psychotherapist. She was born in Essex, UK and educated at York University where she graduated with a degree of English and Music. After various adventures in the scrap trade, bookselling, running an employment agency and having children, she settled into writing. Jenny’s fiction books were published under the name, Jenny Jones. Her first fiction title Fly By Night (1989) was accepted by Headline, the first publisher she sent it to. This was the start of a fantasy trilogy and Headline wanted all three. Two adult ghost stories followed: The Blue Manor (1995) and Where the Children Cry (1999). Five other fantasy/horror books for young people were published by Scholastic, Penguin and Orion. In 2006, Jenny qualified as a psychoanalytical psychotherapist for children and their families. She worked for the NHS and volunteered for Sure Start, an initiative to help with the early stages of a mother and baby’s relationship. Jenny took an early retirement to look after her elderly mother, and after her husband died moved to York with her mother, and four dogs. After experiencing the presence of the Sun, Jenny began writing nonfiction, with her first book titled The Book of the Sun.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you share the “backstory” of how you grew up?
I was an adventurous child. We lived out in the country and while my mother was always occupied by my two younger brothers, I climbed trees, made camps, explored far and wide. I made up stories in these setting and when my brothers were older, they became characters in my play, the handsome prince, the terrible monster, the mysterious stranger. I abstracted various characters from my favorite books and they became the players in my game, acted out by my brothers and friends. What fun it was! I started writing then, too, making up stories that contained my favorite characters.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story?
When I was seven, I took down a book from my parents’ bookshelves and found I could read it, I could understand a ‘grown-up’ book. It was ‘King Solomon’s Ring’ by Konrad Lorenz. It was about how we can understand animals. I saw that we are all living, sentient creatures. I did not know what to do with this knowledge, but it made every day with our dog and cat and budgies very magical. The other thing was that it gave me a feeling of power. If I could read grown up books at seven, I could read anything. I would know how the world works; I would know what was going on. I accompanied my parents to the library and used their tickets to get out adult books, usually science fiction and fantasy. Curiosity was my driving force and stood me in good stead academically. I did well at school and university, I worked in the family business, the scrap trade, in bookselling and ran my own employment agency. I continued to read much fiction, and started writing and publishing fantasy, but running a business and having children kept me well grounded in ordinary life. I had no difficulty in recognizing what was fiction and what was reality. When I later trained as a psychoanalyst, I again came up against the crucial question of, what is reality? Many of my patients heard voices, usually very malign, urging them to damage themselves or even commit suicide.
What was the moment or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
It was an extraordinary event that shook my materialistic world view to the core and my easy definitions of reality and fantasy. It was a mystical revelation. It was an overwhelming voice in my mind, saying, ‘You are in my heart’ and an extraordinary feeling of love, joy and warmth. I did not know who or what it was at first. It was nothing like the miserable, destructive voices my patients heard. I had been an atheist for decades. Why should I receive these powerful messages? It seemed that our god was talking to me, a professional writer, so that I could share it with the world.
What impact did you hope to make when you wrote this book?
It is all about how to love. The importance of love, and the meaning of our diverse and difficult lives. My book is a different perspective on something that all religions and morality systems have said throughout the ages: Love is all that matters. But this comes from our Sun, the glowing ball of burning helium and hydrogen in the sky. I hoped that the daily reminder, as the sun rises in the morning and brightens our day, would help to make people realize the quality of its love, showering down on us, enlivening every breath we take.
Did the actual results align with your expectations? Can you explain?
Our world is full of conflict and fear. We focus our anxieties on the movements of immigrants, or national boundaries and it seems we cannot understand and apply the Sun’s message that we are all one. We are all created by the Sun, we are all the same as the Sun. We (and everything around us) are constructed of atoms, and atoms have a tiny amount of real matter in the nucleus but are largely what we think of as space. This space is the Sun’s imagination, making us who we are, holding the electrons in place, holding it all steady around us so we think this is real. We are all one, within the Sun’s embrace and to fight each other is as ridiculous as our ring finger fighting against our thumb. But we’re a very long was from this understanding. The internet, and work by people like Dr Jeffrey Martin, Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Greyson, Robert Spira and Richard Rudd is helping, and my voice, added to theirs’ begins to make an impression.
What moment let you know that your book had started a movement? Please share a story.
The Sun came to me, with its wondrous messages because, as a long-time atheist, I would not be tempted to make this into a religion, as has been done so often before in Egypt and the Americas. The movement I want to create is more like a meme, an idea that has its own energy and momentum. We are one species: swarming all over our beautiful planet. But we make stupid misjudgments on account of slight differences of skin color, religion, culture. We have to learn, through understanding, why people leave their homelands, why they need their guns, why they seem to want to fight against each other, their own brothers and sisters within our species. The reviews and comments I received from others have led me to believe that this understanding, that we are all one, is slowly spreading.
What kinds of things did you hear right away from readers? What are the most frequent things you hear from readers about your book now? Are they the same? Different?
I often hear about how it makes my readers feel differently about themselves and others. No one who is an out and out materialist would read it, so it’s not like I have to defend myself against them. Many reviews stress that this is a message for our times. Others are delighted and relieved to understand why we suffer, what is the meaning of this life and where we go from here. My aim is to make people happier, more loving, less stressed. Those who read it do seem to be getting there.
What is the most moving or fulfilling experience you’ve had as a result of writing this book? Can you share a story?
The book helped me considerably when recently I lost three of my friends and my husband. To know, for sure, that death is not the end, and that we will meet again, has massively supported me in the dark days of the last two years. The sun still shines, it sets in glory, and we briefly flicker into life, flare brightly as we live out our time and then sink back into the glory which is the Sun’s embrace. It told me that it sends us out into our lives like a parent throwing a child just a little into the air, and then catching them safely in loving arms.
Have you experienced anything negative? Do you feel there are drawbacks to writing a book that starts such colossal conversation and change?
Many of my atheist, materialist friends think I’m probably delusional. But an eminent psychiatrist, Dr Peter Fenwick. and other very successful people like Jeffrey Mishlove have read and liked my book. However, it is really hard for most people to understand that the Sun is conscious. Rupert Sheldrake has written a fascinating paper entitled, ‘Is the Sun conscious?’ which you can find on my website. And that if it is conscious, then so are all the stars we see, and those we don’t. The problem is that our senses are very limited, completely adjusted to life here on earth, enough for what we need here. The Sun lives in another dimension, and we only experience a facet of its being in the burning ball of light and fire. This is all we are capable of. We were designed like that because we have to endure the challenges of living here with acceptance and compassion, thus adding love to the universe. This is the meaning of life here.
Can you articulate why you think books in particular have the power to create movements, revolutions, and true change?
Not everyone can have mystic experiences, or other insights. One can open YouTube channels, try to get television interviews, but as I found at age seven, there’s something empowering about holding a book in your hands, taking it to bed with you, slipping it into a bag. You can internalize a book, until it becomes part of your mental furniture. Then, and only then, can you begin to act on its ideas in the world. This is true of any world changing book, whether it’s by Marx, Hitler, Darwin or the many writers of the Bible. Ideas need to be pondered, then tried out. Move from shadow out into the Sun….does it not feel different, does it not feel lovely?
What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a bestselling writer? (i.e. perseverance, discipline, play, craft study) Can you share a story or example?
For my fiction books I needed to research and read extensively. Curiosity was the key, as it has been throughout my life. Read all the time, to see how books work, how they are manageable, what induces the reader to turn the page. I did this for years. But the Sun’s words directed me to use my life, my experiences, to give validity to what it was saying. I’ve always tried to write 1,000 words a day, and this is a realistic wordcount that has stood me in good stead.
What challenge or failure did you learn the most from in your writing career? Can you share the lesson(s) that you learned?
Good reviews do not equal sales. I was often well reviewed, and The Book of the Sun has received many good reviews, though not huge numbers of sales. It helps to be out there, to have a social media presence, to do workshops and give lectures. I have done all of these at various times and have enjoyed them all. Writing is a solitary career, and if you are sociable, as I am, it’s good to get ‘out there’.
Many aspiring authors would love to make an impact similar to what you have done. What are the 5 things writers need to know if they want to spark a movement with a book? (please include a story or example for each)
They have to understand their audience. I worked as a psychoanalytical psychotherapist for children and their families and met all sorts of people, some whom it would be easy to dismiss as lazy, drunken, irresponsible or stupid. And yet, once you found out what they were dealing with in their lives, you could see why they appeared so inadequate. I doubted that I would have done any better, in their shoes. A wide experience of all sorts of people is invaluable because you have to fit in with their expectations just enough to lull them into feeling comfortable, before you are able to introduce new ideas. No one wants to be bludgeoned over the head with new concepts and unfamiliar ideas. Gently is the way to go.
Gentle though you may be, you need also to be passionate. You must mean what you’re writing about. Any reader might see through you if you’re lying. This is particularly true with a spiritual book, which this is. I have to convince readers that this is my true experience.
The world, of course, needs progress in many areas. What movement do you hope someone (or you!) starts next? Can you explain why that is so important?
We need to support mothers during pregnancy and until their child is two or three. We learn to love at our mothers’ breasts, and an unhappy, frightened, ill, bereaved or impoverished mother will not be able to give her baby the loving, intensely interested attention that they need to feel that the world is a good place. A baby’s brain changes massively in these early ages, and it has been shown that infantile urges persist throughout life. We have to think of those societies where mothers are not treated well, where women have very little freedom, and think about the kinds of children they bring up. This is crucial.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Readers can connect with me on my website (https://www.jennyrook.com/), on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/authorjennyrook), X (https://twitter.com/AuthorJennyRook) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jenny.rook).
Thank you so much for these insights. It was a true pleasure to do this with you.
Author Jenny Rook On How To Write A Book That Sparks A Movement was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.