Leave a Trail of Genius

By Nichole Giles

After attending several Storymaker conferences over the years, I’ve discovered I like staying Friday night in the hotel where the conference is being held. Even though I don’t live far away, it saves a lot of driving, and gives me somewhere to crash in the few hours between the late-night party and the early morning classes.

So this year, I got a room at the Marriott. I won’t outline the boring details of my night, or my morning. Instead, I want to talk about the handy, dandy little note pad on the nightstand. First of all, being a writer, these are the small details I notice. Because, let’s face it, at one point or another we’ve all ended up awake in the middle of the night writing down dreams or epiphanies that have come to us when our brains are the most relaxed. And a note pad and pen come in handy.

But I especially loved the one at the Marriott because at the top of the pad was written, “Leave a trail of genius.”

Those words made me think. Isn’t that our goal as writers? To leave a trail of genius in our wake. To write something so profound, so emotionally wrenching, that another person will read our words and be forever changed. Genius! That’s definitely the goal.

Because of that inspiring note pad, I left a note for the Marriott people about the comfy beds and tasty food. I couldn’t leave the fancy paper empty. Besides, now they have my autograph. And when I’m a bestselling author, they’ll be able to tell people I stayed at their hotel, and while I was there, I left a trail of my own brand of genius.

And that note is only the beginning.