I've been doing rewrites on three different projects lately– in case you've never written a book before, re-writes are the part you always forget about, the childbirth part where you're like "for God's sake– I already WROTE A WHOLE BOOK, what more do you want from me?". This makes you feel sorry for yourself and find new and evermore imaginative ways to procrastinate, which leads me to my next topic, which is : why does Pandora keep suggesting that I might like songs by Hootie and the Blowfish and Blues Traveler? This is not helping with the rewrite process.
Wait, let me back up. I am what you might call a music fan, meaning I'm into good music, I always have music playing, I have four music apps on my iPhone, and a few years ago I did an interview for Large Hearted Boy (a blog I highly recommend) where I discussed the music that I listen to while I am writing (or rewriting), and yes, it actually is an important part of the writing process. You'll notice that Hootie and the Blowfish are not on this list, not because I don't like that one song they did that was popular in the 90's or because I don't care for Darius Rucker's voice, because he sounds fine, but dude, Darius Rucker is playing country music now, so I guess what I'm saying is, how did I start out with a playlist based on a Muse song I liked from the Twilight (look it up, Stephenie Meyer has great taste in music), even though I think Matt Bellamy from Muse is a douchebag for making fun of Twilight when it put his band on the map and made him popular enough to get on Kate Hudson's "I want to have your rockstar baby" radar. This Muse-based playlist was going fine, but it then took a right turn into Hootie and Matchbox 20 fandom. I know, it is probably not a good idea to let an algorithm choose your music for you, but I have to ask– Pandora, why does liking Muse lead me to Coldplay, which then automatically generates a playlist that includes Hootie and the Blowfish, Train, Blues Traveler, and the theme song from Friends, or as Stephan would call this "music for people who have no taste in music?". Incidentally, Stephan also recently asked me when Sirius XM had designated a station for "Beard Rock," and by this I think he is meaning Bon Iver and Ray LaMontagne, or maybe he means music for guys with beards, who knows?
Seriously, I am actually wondering what it is about the particular instrumentation of Coldplay that leads it algorithmically into Blues Traveler territory ? The respective demographics for this music is not the same, meaning "just because someone likes Coldplay, doesn't mean they're automatically going to suddenly be attracted to the harmonicas and stinkiness of John Popper. By the way, did you ever see that appearance John Popper did on Howard Stern after he lost all that weight, and his man boobs were still so prominent that they had to pixelate them?
So yeah, the rewrites are going well– can't you tell?
