What's the Frequency (Kenneth)

My attempt to blog more has been foiled by the arrival of the busy time of year. I know that seems obvious, given I've been busy, but that's been busy with other people's projects. Now I'm busy with my projects and other people's projects at the same time. WOO HOO!

Wait, no, that's not woo hoo. That's D'OH! Similar to woo hoo, only different.

So a quick note about frequency inspired by Nate over at Sometimes the Wheel is on Fire. His new son, The Professor, is like many a baby/toddler. When put in a moving car, he falls right asleep. I have many friends with many babies along with a ridiculous number of nieces and nephews and this has proven true in most cases. Something about a car's vibration and/or the white noise of travel puts a baby to sleep.

I experience something similar. Not that I fall asleep. (My wife is the one that falls asleep, requiring me to always be the driver on family holidays.) My mind focuses. Just before she falls asleep, the missus asks "Are you writing?" because she sees the look on my face and knows I'm working out a story in my brain. I also do the majority of my writing on the commuter rail down into Boston. Something about the vibration and the noise (barring crying babies, crazy people, and obnoxious people) lets me focus on the story and nothing else.

That's awesome, except when the train stops. Today the train broke down (which happens more often than it should). And it occurred to me after we started moving again that I did not write the entire time we were stopped. I checked twitter and fiddled on my phone. I looked down the aisle and out the window. I did everything but write. As soon as we started moving again, boom, started writing again.

Not sure why that is. Someone become a scientist and figure that out. *cough* Livia Blackburne *cough*

No Really, I am thankful

I don't have a lot of regular readers, but those of you that stop in, I really enjoy talking with you (both here and on Twitter). It's been fun, and I look forward to more fun in the future. I hope you'll be there for the ride.

And for all you new people, hiya. Here's our corner. Stay awhile if you like.


Mmmm, sap. But it's too late in the year to make good New Hampshire syrup. What should we do with all this sweet? Balance it out, would be the Hindu custom. (I need to dig up the article, but there's some awesome stuff about how all four flavor types need to balance for a healthy life.)

I've been thinking, lately, I'm kind of scared. I never really got into drugs or heavy drinking, but I had my own vices and really went off the rails for a decade or so. It took a lot of discipline to get my shit together so that I could work a steady job, draw a steady salary, living with a roof over my head, and write a novel from start to finish. But sometimes I worry that the discipline chokes out my voice. Or at least the voice I'm accustomed too (veterans here have seen it when a post just builds up steam and then we just go balls to the wall like the train in Back to the Future 3 after the red log ignites and the whole thing goes over a cliff...which is typically what happens to me as well :). There was a beautiful fury in my writing once, and now it's sharp and precise. It's like a broadsword versus a razor. I always got better reader response from the broadsword, but never finished anything. Ever. I never finished anything more than a few thousand words.

And of course, it took a particular lifestyle to write like that, one I would never want to return to. For as many awesome stories as I have to tell from my twenties, there are a LOT of things I wish I had a second chance on.

So, add this to the new ways a writer can be neurotic about whether or not they have talent. Did I have more talent before? I have I lost my talent?

I don't know. But at least there's pie.