Imagine you are an aspiring writer, stuck working at a five-and-dime store in a small town for an eternity more than you had planned.  The novel you furiously began scribbling late into the night after working long shifts at the store is collecting dust, still unfinished almost ten years later.  Resigned to failure, you complacently clock in for your shift each morning at 8:30, full of regret but too exhausted to make a change.  And then one day, a customer delivers to you a tidy brown package containing ten worn books of various sizes, along with a set of instructions: write a manuscript based on the contents of the books, guard them with your life, and discuss them with no one.  Equally bewildered and intrigued, you bend back the cover of the smallest, most unassuming of the collection and read the following: “This is the Journal of Abraham Lincoln.” [Read more...]