Now is the time for all good authors.....

I'm not sure how typing is taught to the current generation, but I'm sure it's different from my high school experience.

My first typing class dates me. I remember sitting in a class with 25 desks perfectly aligned. Each desk had a standard (non-electric) typewriter. You know the style. At the end of each sentence you had to return the carriage. All the keys had masking tape on them so there was no advantage to looking at your fingers. The teacher would call out letters as if we were marching to a tune....the tune of 25 plunks as each key hit the carriage drum and bounced back. Every so often you would hear someone say, "Oh no, shoot" or "phooey" as they discovered several keys lodged in a pile on the carriage.

After a month or so of finding our way around the keyboard we smiled as we proudly typed, Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Over and over we typed similar sentences trying to memorize every key as our fingers danced to the rhythm.

I have forgotten most of the sentences we typed, except for, "Now is the time..." It was easy to remember this one. It seemed patriotic. It called to a deeper sense of purpose. I was a teen when John Kennedy announced, "Ask not what your country can do for you....ask what you can do for your country." I was energized and felt that I was important. I felt privileged to be in a country where I could take up the cause to help others.

Authors....we must continue that cause. Even with media and television, it is still the written word that slices through the hardest heart. We have a job to do. No matter how this election turns out, our writings will continue. We have the ability to change lives by what we write.

I hope you will take the time to type this line several times and let it take root in your heart. "Now is the time for all good men/women to come to the aid of their country." Your voice needs to be heard. When you feel alone and your writing seems to be an endless debate of grammatical rules - don't give up. "NOW is the time for all good men/women to come to aid of their country."

More than ever, non-Christians need our words. If you knew that plowing through that unedited manuscript and getting it to a publisher would mean 150 souls would be saved - would you do it? Would you do it for a hundred? How about 75? How about 32 or 22 or even 11? Would you work hard for a month if you knew that 2 people would meet you in heaven and thank you for your service?

"Now is the time for all good AUTHORS to come to the aid of their country."

Will you join me?

God loves you and has called you to write,

Debbie