Live Long . . . And Prosper

Questionnaires have been completed. Books, postcards, and letters have been mailed. The news-release is being sent to infinity and beyond! (No wait, that's another movie.)

Still, the publisher is pushing me and my piggy bank very hard this first week, as The Ultimate Christian Living hits store shelves and reviewers' "in boxes". And already, I've been getting calls. (I usually hang up.)

I did, however, get a call from a small town newspaper in my old stomping grounds and, for some reason, the reporter seemed fixated on what he called, "my output." (My wife thinks I don't put out enough, so what does he know?) It took me a few minutes to realize he was talking about writing.

"I see you've written twenty books in twelve years. That's sort of prolific isn't it?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm not sure," I answered. "I'm not complaining. But I really haven't pushed that hard, since I don't write twelve hours a day, six days a week. I still work long hours as a pastor, so writing is a late-night and early-morning activity for me."

"How many books do you think you can write in the next ten years?" he wanted to know. "Another twenty?"

"Well, I'm a much better writer now than I was ten years ago, and I have many more connections, and as I think about the twenty books I wrote over the past twelve years, I wrote at least that many books that were not published."

"So . . . forty, then? You think you can write forty more books in ten years? Couldcha write forty?" The guy seemed to be daring me, pushing me even, like Danny Tarr used to taunt me in the alley between the Dime Store and Littlejohn's Pharmacy before I knocked his puny little block off.

I puffed up my chest and tried to sound tough on the phone. But I pulled my hamstring. Still, I shot back, confidently, "Yeah, I think I can write forty books in ten years. What's it to ya? You gotta problem with that?"

"No, no!" he said, backing down (the little punk). "Whatever you say, Mr. Alleycat. I don't doubt you for a minute. Write on!"

"Yeah," I said. "Live long and prosper."