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By Ada Nicholson Brownell

Today I completed going through the proof of my new book, Imagine the Future You. Hopefully, it’s the last edit I’ll need to do.

Info for the book, written for teens and young adults, had been hanging around my desk and computers since the early1990s. The book grew out of Dynamite Decisions for Youth curriculum I wrote for the Dunamis Academy, a summers and after-school program at my church where I taught shortly after retiring as a newspaper reporter.

Unfinished projects bother me. I hate looking at things that need to be done, especially if I don’t have time to do them in the immediate future.

That’s where my will comes in.

A few years ago I decided my writing projects are like what my doctor told me when it was obvious I needed a knee replacement: “You’re not getting any younger,” he said.

So with a passion, I prioritized the writing projects I hoped to complete before Jesus comes or He calls me home.  I wrote Swallowed by Life (2011), Joe the Dreamer (2012), and converted Confessions of a Pentecostal for Kindle (2012). Imagine the Future You should be released in Oct. 2013.

In early 2012, I wrote my historical novel, The Lady Fugitive, in five weeks. Of course I spent many more weeks editing. It’s the next book I hope to make available on Amazon as a paperback and for Kindle, and it’s nearly ready.

When I decided to fast track ideas and material I’d already accumulated into books, I knew it was a waste of time to go for a traditional publisher because it takes a year or two to get them into print—even if a publisher would decide to invest in a person who might not have many productive years left. So I became an “Indie” publisher using Amazon’s CreateSpace.

I haven’t sold a jillion copies or made money. I might have almost earned my initial investment, which I believe is less on Amazon than it is for many print-on-demand publishers. I could have published for free on Amazon if I’d not hired an editor or paid a cover designer.

It cost me nothing to make my out-of-print book available for Kindle. I did take it down and edit it again because I made a few errors in typing it up. I wrote that book in typewriter days.

Despite all the writing, editing and marketing going on at my house these days, I still write op-ed pieces occasionally for newspapers and articles for Christian magazines. Since I prayed the Prayer of Jabez and God enlarged my territory, I find myself selling enough of these to convince me to write less on my blog, invite guests to do the blog writing (no one charges to be my guest writer because they advertise their books) and I concentrate on writing magazine articles and books.

Do you have unfinished writing projects in your computer, ignored and waiting for the recycle bin? No matter what your age, you’re not getting any younger and the harvest is ready and ripe. If you’re distressed at the dark side novels being consumed even by our church youth, write a suspenseful novel filled with hope and light. Get organized and squeeze out an hour or two a day and write that article, that story, or that commentary for the newspaper.

When I say “get organized,” I mean write down and file ideas, date and file illustrations you might use. Be sure to date the piece, and note the source. Then make time to write, stopping mid-sentence for that session so you can quickly pick up your thoughts later.

If a senior citizen like me can still produce and be published, you can, too. We’re told to “Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not…Complete the ministry God has given you.”

(2 Timothy 4:2,5NLT).