Wow. So it's been two weeks since I've updated my blog. Probably because it's been an incredibly busy two weeks.

For one of the two weeks, a friend from Montreal came to visit. It was a lot of fun to have her here, especially since I hadn't seen her since her last visit to L.A. over two years ago. This time I got to introduce her to the Hotel Cafe, Kitchen 24, the Rainbow, and Katsuya, and we also checked out a concert at the Hollywood Palladium.

On her last night in L.A., we decided to grab dinner at Saddle Ranch on Sunset, because she'd never been there but had heard about it. She'd also read about it in my book. It was still too early in the night for anyone to be riding the bull, but as we sat at our table, talking and eating our food, we noticed two men with guitars circulating through the room. They'd stop at a table every once in a while to play a song. I've never actually seen this at Saddle Ranch before, but I guess I must always have been there too late into the night.

Not long after we started eating, the duo came by our table to ask if we had a song request. For a moment, my friend and I looked at each other with blank expressions. Each of us had been a little more focused on the sweet potato casserole that had come with our meals than on songs to be serenaded with in the middle of Saddle Ranch. We declined for the moment and the pair moved on, but the topic turned to songs we would request. We went through the song lists on our iPhones, and briefly wondered if they'd know some of the more obscure-to-the-US but popular-in-Canada songs we each knew. We could have been wrong, but we had a feeling that requests for the Tragically Hip, David Usher, or my very specific "acoustic version of 'Tired of Waiting' by the Trews, recorded for a radio station" probably weren't up there in what was likely to be an otherwise extensive repertoire.

At one point in our discussion of songs, my friend asked me a great question. "If Rock Star's Girl had a soundtrack, what would it be?" As I stopped and took a sip of my soda water, I thought about the answer.

And now I'm answering this question on my blog so that it can be read before going out, making dinner or playing CheekyBingo. Okay, I'm answering part of the question, and that's what songs I listened to most often while writing and revising Rock Star's Girl. Because in truth, there are actually two soundtracks: the writing songs, and the songs that would actually be a great soundtrack for Rock Star's Girl should it ever be turned into a film.

If you're a writer, you may share the feeling I have about music and writing. There are certain songs that can immediately put your mind into the perfect headspace for the project you're working on, even if the association between project and song defies explanation.

For Rock Star's Girl, I found that my go-to song was Seether's cover of "Careless Whisper." If you asked me to pinpoint why, I probably couldn't articulate it in words, but I'll try. There is something about the very mood and atmosphere of how the band chose to perform the song, and the gritty undertones of guitars and vocals that would, without fail, strike exactly the right chord within me (pardon the pun), allowing the words to flow.

When I was doing one of the biggest revisions to Rock Star's Girl, a song I listened to over and over again was "You're So Cool" by Streamer Bendy, which is a band a friend in Brisbane is in. (The song hasn't been released in the U.S. yet, but they released the video for the song online last winter.) Again, I probably couldn't explain why this is, but the energy of the song probably had a lot to do with it. When you're tearing apart your manuscript for approximately the eleventy-billionth time, great energy is incredibly motivating. And, well, energizing.

Here are a few other songs I also recall playing over and over again while writing and revising:

• "Tired of Waiting" (acoustic, Power97 Studio 97 Sessions, Vol. 2) – The Trews
• "The Grace" – Neverending White Lights
• "Where We Are" – Neverending White Lights
• "Black, Black Heart" (acoustic, Mile End Sessions) – David Usher
• "Smoke Baby" – Hawksley Workman
• "In the Stars" – Jess Penner
• "Night of the Hunter" – 30 Seconds to Mars
• "Hurricane" – 30 Seconds to Mars
• "Sing" – My Chemical Romance

At this point, I'm sure there are songs I listened to on repeat in the early days of the first draft of Rock Star's Girl that I've forgotten about. And most of the songs I listened to while writing and revising haven't been played much if at all in months. Whenever I hear these songs in future, though, I know that they'll remind me of the months spent writing and revising my first novel, which was a very special time in my life.

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