This is K.M. Island and you are listening to twenty-first episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast. My music listening habits while writing have changed

dramatically over the years. I used to have this system of collecting good soundtracks,

then listening to them in alphabetical order. I know, I know. I like using the music as a kind of wild card.

Instead of consciously trying to match the music to whatever I was writing at the time,

I got to mine the music for new and unexpected notes and tones within the scene.

But for whatever reason, or probably the obvious reasons, actually, this doesn't really work for me anymore.

The result is that I pretty much listen to music like a normal person now.

The same album per work in progress over and over again.

For my portal fantasy sequel Work in Progress Dreambreaker, that album, or artist rather,

has been the trailer music company Two Steps From Hell, specifically their Battle Cry and

Archangel albums.

The good news is their music perfectly fits what I'm writing in this book.

The bad news is that I really, really need some new albums.

But for now I just keep listening and writing and writing. You get the idea.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Learn five ways to take risks with your writing.

We writers are really kind of a whiny bunch.

Our Facebook and Twitter streams, our blogs,

sometimes even our books, are full of discussions about how hard it is to be

writers.

There is a lot of mostly good-natured woe is me sharing of commisitive quotes from our patrons, St. Hemingway and St. Plath,

and so so much of that fantastically cathartic black humor we all love so much.

There's a reason the You Know you are a writer hashtag is popular.

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