When you’re in the midst of writing something, you settle into a natural rhythm. The words set the backbeat and the fingers follow the melody in your mind. Yesterday, when I sat down to write about the sun, there was a lot of racket outside my window as four corners of an intersection were being torn up to replace the sewer drains. I decided to put on my closed-ear headphones, crank some iTunes music to drown out the heavy machinery, and write my article. I discovered, to my dismay, that something had changed as my natural writing manner was out-of-sync with my eye. My fingers couldn’t find the melody. My words had no natural backbeat.
