adjusts mic, takes a long sip of coffee, stares into the middle distance for a beat too long

Alright, so here’s a thing I’ve been thinking about. Because I’m always thinking about something, right? That’s the curse. That’s the gig. And today, today I’m thinking about editing. Because I’ve been editing. That’s what I’ve been doing instead of being here. Editing. Which, by the way, is a different animal than writing. Writing is… writing is throwing shit at the wall. Writing is chaos. Writing is that fever dream where you’re just trying to get the thing out of your head and onto the page before it evaporates. But editing? Editing is surgery. Editing is sitting with the thing you made and asking, “Is this true? Is this necessary? Does this earn its place?” And that takes a certain kind of focus. A certain kind of calm. A certain kind of… atmosphere.

And here’s what I’ve figured out about myself, and maybe you’ll relate to this, maybe you won’t, but I’ll say it anyway: when I’m editing my books, I like a really ambient soundtrack in the background. And I mean really ambient. We’re not talking about music with lyrics. We’re not talking about anything that demands attention. We’re talking about something that you know is there but isn’t too imposing. Something that sits in the room with you like a cat or a dog. Like, it’s present, it’s alive, but it’s not asking you to do anything. It’s not demanding to be petted. It’s just… there. Breathing. Existing. And somehow that makes the whole thing easier.

long pause

I don’t know why this works. Maybe it’s because the ambient stuff creates a kind of cocoon. A bubble. It seals off the outside world. It says, “This is the space. This is where the work happens. Everything else can wait.” And when you’re editing, when you’re doing that slow, tedious, meticulous work of going through your own words and deciding what lives and what dies, you need a bubble. You need a space that feels separate from the noise, from the news, from the emails, from the endless fucking scrolling. You need something that holds you in place without pulling at you. And ambient music does that. It’s the auditory equivalent of a weighted blanket.

And look, I’ve tried other things. I’ve tried silence. Silence is too loud. Silence lets in all the other thoughts: the anxieties, the to-do lists, the memories of that embarrassing thing you said in 2007. Silence is a trap. And I’ve tried lyrics. Lyrics are a disaster. Because I’ll be editing a sentence and suddenly I’m listening to what someone’s saying and then I’m thinking about that and then I’m on a whole different tangent and the sentence is still sitting there, half-edited, waiting for me to come back. So no lyrics. No podcasts. No audiobooks. Nothing with words. Because words are my job. I can’t have someone else’s words in my head while I’m trying to wrangle my own.

long pause

So ambient it is. The kind of stuff that’s almost not there. The kind of stuff that you forget is playing until it stops, and then you notice the silence and you miss it. And I know, I know, this sounds like a small thing. This sounds like a trivial detail. But I’m telling you, the conditions matter. The environment matters. If you’re a creative person, you have to figure out what you need. You have to figure out the conditions that let you do the work. And for me, the condition is this: a room, a chair, a laptop, and something ambient playing in the background. Something that knows it’s there but isn’t too imposing. Something that says, “I’ve got you. Do your thing.”

cackles

Anyway. That’s what I’ve been up to. Editing. With ambient music. And redesigning covers. And thinking about the lies we tell ourselves. And trying to be a human being instead of a machine.

That’s the deal.

Alright. I’m gonna go put on something ambient and stare at a paragraph until it makes sense. Here’s a nice ambient soundscape I’ve been listening to whilst editing. I hope it works for you too.

Talk soon.

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