Soundtrack

I don't know, this is perhaps a bit silly and fey (third usage there) for a blog entry, but I've seen a few other indie authors do this, and I can't get the idea out of my head, and my bad toothache prevents me from writing something more intelligent.

Here's some insight into the music that I was listening to while I wrote my books, and that I think would provide a good soundtrack to reading them.

TO TRAVEL HOPELESSLY was all about the retro; I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin, especially FOOL IN THE RAIN. My days in Thailand always seemed drenched in typhoon rains.



While I was cobbling SPEAKING ACTIVITIES together, I was struggling to inject humor into a not-especially-humorous topic; to keep it light, I listened to a lot of "funny" rap songs, especially Childish Gambino.



HOW TO SURVIVE LIVING ABROAD was written during one of our "test" weeks in the Sandbox; I'd go proctor an exam for a couple hours in the morning, then go run around the football field and do a workout with jumping and pushups and vaults; then I'd go home and drink coffee and write like hell for hours; from concept to uploading in about three weeks, I think. I fixated on this song by Asher Roth, which matched the simultaneously determined and savage yet tongue in cheek feel I wanted for that book:



Then of course, VODKABERG. That motherfucker came hard. Bad and bittersweet memories and a dark tone, which I wanted to approach in a certain way.

I'm looking at the notes I made for my editor, who generally disliked the book on the grounds that it was too disjointed and dark; I rather grandly proclaimed that I wanted to "deconstruct the dark heart of sex tourism and expat life." See there, it's not just a bunch of stories about vomit and drunk sex! It's a DECONSTRUCTION!)

Who else could it possibly be, but Nine Inch Nails? Especially this remix:



and this one: