Like other authors, I have found it relatively difficult to write an interesting daily blog while simultaneously write a engaging, well researched book.

• William Gibson: "I could not write a novel and keep the blog at the same time."
  
• Virginia Postrel: "I'm too easily distracted to blog and concentrate on my book at the same time."
  
• Steven Johnson: "...after a three-month stretch of writing almost every day (on his latest book) I feel pretty good...albeit a little guilty for neglecting the blog..."

Why is it so hard to write a book and blog at the same time? Here are a few thoughts:

At a high level, blogs (definition of weblog):

• Focus on current events, new findings
  
• Short, pithy unedited arguments
  
• Hyperlinked to other opinions, discussions and relevant information
  
• Relatively un-related topics from day-to-day

Book writing, at least in my case, requires:

• Extensive knowledge saturation (history, science, economics, politics, and futures research)
  
• Extended, seamless argument development
  
• Accumulated knowledge expression through verse not links
  
• Extreme fact checking and editing

For these reasons, I'll be taking a six week break from blogging Brain Waves to focus on writing my forthcoming book, tentatively titled -- Brain Wave: Our Emerging Neurosociety. But instead of taking a "blog holiday" I decided to put together a group of exceptional guest bloggers to keep you informed, entertained and the Brain Waves momentum rolling.

The Brain Waves guest blogging network will include a week of blogging by the following individuals: Pat Kane, Steven Johnson, Paul Zak, Wrye Sententia and Richard Glen Boire, as well as a few others. More on each of them and the interesting topics they will cover tomorrow. (Thank you team!)