I like to listen to music when I write– instrumental, because songs with words distract me.  I must have listened to Ravel’s Bolero about 50 times as I was writing Astrid Maxxim.  My wife kept walking by and saying “that’s not the right music for that book.”  This is because she knows the music from the Blake Edward’s movie 10.  The Bolero scene in that movie is a really great one, but that’s not what I think about when I listen to it.  I usually think of building action– like that scene in (Arnold’s) Conan the Barbarian, where they sneak into James Earl Jones’s orgy.  Although they had new music for that scene, if you watch it I think you will see, they were copying Ravel.

Anyway, some of the other tracks I listen to while writing include: One Million Miles Away by J. Ralph, the title theme from Zulu, and The Kiss from Last of the Mohicans.