I wonder why I tell my students they’re writers instead of authors. Author is a much more powerful word. I think of authority. I think of taking control of something, in this case language, and making it behave.
Both author and authority derive from the same word–meaning to originate, promote, and increase.
I love the connection between author and authority. When you author something, you bring some new thing about; you increase what you want to grow and promote what you must promote. You claim the authority to do this–you and nobody else–as you put the words on the page.
The act of authoring with authority reflects something of God’s character. When we write, we become image bearers in a special way. Writing is an incarnation, really, a mystery as strange and beautiful as thought itself. (Where do thoughts originate? No scientist can tell you.)
God authors. God originates. He can do this through us.
With over a million words in the English language, the possible permutations for any sentence shut many writers down. But keep choosing and ordering. Keep increasing, promoting, and originating.
It’s a divine sort of act.