Finally – the long-awaited music section. As you will know, there’s almost no ARISEN without the soundtrack. That is, this music totally powers me through my runs (where I do all the creative work) and then through my writing days (where I do all the work work). Books Eleven and Twelve being by far the longest, hardest, and most ambitious project of my life (never mind all the personal crap I was dealing with), the music was even more indispensable than usual in keeping me going. It kind of saved me, actually.

For the first time, I did the entire playlist I wrote these books to as a Spotify playlist, so you can actually listen along as you read. (I apologise that the "embedded" player below just opens the Spotify app or Spotify web player. I naturally assumed it would play inline on the page, but I was wrong.)

You could do a lot worse than listen to those tracks over and over while reading ARISEN, or at least anytime the action heats up. Definitely for the climax of this book. (I know I did – during the n-thousand read-throughs I had to do to get everything right…)

Special mentions:
“Endure” by Nonpoint is the very official theme song of ARISEN Books Eleven & Twelve. Why? A) The title perfectly captured my experience and state of mind through most of this; B) it’s hard and heavy as hell, but with great dynamics, conferring oceans of energy; and, mainly, C) I listened to it over and over and over and over while writing these books. Over and over and over and over.

Other standouts from this cycle of ARISEN were:

1. Saliva, “Badass” (the theme song for Predator’s Crowning Moment of Badass).
2. Bobaflex, “I’m Glad You’re Dead,” “Bad Man,” and “Bury Me With My Guns On.” Damn, dudes! I could have listened to that stuff all day (and often did). Louder and louder. And louder yet. (Yeah, the guys in this band are not only West Virginians – they are actual McCoys. Yes, of Hatfield and McCoy fame… It works.)
3. Shinedown, “Cut the Cord” – ’Cause victory is all you need.
4. Papa Roach, “Warriors” – Shine your light, Push the enemy back, When you're under attack, It will protect you, Kill the night, All we need is a spark, We can bury the dark, Ignite – Come on and shine your light.
5. Pop Evil, “Footsteps”.
6. Manafest, “No Plan B” (story of my life).
7. Black Stone Cherry, “White Trash Millionaire” (ha ha ha ha!!!).
8. DiRTy WoRMz, “Impossible” – You want war with me? You must be daydreamin’ – you’ll be lucky if I decide to let you walk away breathin’…
9. Quite a few other Nonpoint tracks: “What a Day”, “Lights, Camera, Action”, and “I Said It” – definitely “I Said It”. (You could a lot do worse than listen to Nonpoint while waiting for the new Tool album.)
10. Lacey Sturm, Life Screams – every second of the whole album (it’s got a 4.9-star average on 127 reviews on Amazon!), but especially “The Solder” and “You’re Not Alone.” Oh, man. Just – oh, man. (Just try to imagine what a life-changing album they would have put out if she had stayed with Flyleaf. As an aid to that, check out Flyleaf’s first album without her – which is still amazing!) Plus “Life Screams.” Also “Feels Like Forever.” The whole album, maybe? Every song is particularly great – each better than all the others.
11. The Qemists are back! Warrior Sound! Holy s&^%!
12. Extra special mention for Anti-Mortem, “Truck Stop Special”.

My very sincere and humble thanks to all these absurdly talented musical artists, whose amazing work helped me do mine.