Last week, I stumbled upon Ms Mr’s Secondhand Rapture, and I’m loving it! I can get really obsessive with music. Like, if I find a song or album I love that I can write to, I listen to it exclusively…until I start associating it with too many things, and then I need to stop.

(As an example, I adored Lorde’s “Glory and Gore” and made a NaNoWriMo 2014 playlist made from five songs from her self-titled album. It worked beautifully as WIP2’s soundtrack…until I saw it used in a promotional trailer for The Vikings. Now, I can’t listen to it without seeing bearded men running down a hill.)

So, back to my latest obsession, I love listening to the entire album because it’s almost like a novel the way the music unfolds and builds. My favorite song, though, is “Bones.” It captured me from the first notes. Like, gave me chills. I was all “How come I’ve never heard of this until now?” (Answer: probably because I was too busy listening to Lorde back in 2014.)

Here, have a listen:

{If you were curious, you can check out the playlist of other songs that are prominent on my WIP2 – music playlist . This isn’t ALL of the songs (picture a bunch of Linkin Park, Godsmack, Korn), but it captures the essence.}

Even though music helps me get in the mood and atmosphere of my WIP (each WIP has its own playlist), I generally don’t write to music. Instead, I write with my White Noise app set to Airplane noise. I don’t know if it’s the noise itself or the fact that it looks like this on my app:

but it’s just the perfect pitch to help my focus…more so than plain white noise.

Speaking of focus, despite my long hours of work, unplanned trips to the day job, family events, and my need to sleep every now and again, I was able to power through this draft of the WIP and get it looking like the story I want. It’s unreal because I never thought I’d get here with this WIP…it’s been my neverending story of sorts, something I kept reimagining and retelling because I really didn’t know what I wanted to say. I was in love with the idea of it, the world, the characters…so much so that I just wanted to keep reliving it and changing things up.

Well, no more! I have the story set and ready to read through again and polish. And, I had so many other ideas ::coughcough four finished drafts coughcough:: that I can develop those as companion stories in this world.

Every WIP is different, but the fact that I powered through this WIP specifically means so much to me, and makes me feel so accomplished.

And, the best part is I feel free to focus on another WIP now…I have two drafts calling to me, and I would love to see them finished as well, and out to the world. ^_^