Sometimes you just have to throw it all away and follow your dreams. That pretty much sums up the story of singer/songwriter Christine Kane.

Kane grew up the typical suburbanite outside of the nation’s capital — not the typical feeding ground for starving artists.

She graduated from Boston College into the mundane 9 to 5 lifestyle that drove her to give up a promising career for an uncertain future in music.

“I didn’t like college a whole lot,” Kane said. “Not because of the education side of it, though. I have a pretty different view looking back on my college years than most people do.

“It’s a tough time on people emotionally. You’re discovering who you are, and you’re a target audience for the media. For me, it was like polar opposites crashing into each other.”

From there she turned to music, which was a part of her life from early on.

“When I was little, my parents were into classical music. I started dancing ballet to my dad’s records at 2 and a half, and was dancing until high school,” Kane said. “As a dancer, I was always intrigued by what possessed people to move so passionately, and intrigued by what composers wrote.”

As she got older, she was listening to a lot more music. Kane started studying the people who wrote songs and got into songwriting herself. She was soon taking in vast inspiration from “the people who walk on the outside of the genres.”

Kane bought her first guitar when she was in college. She had learned all the basic chords on her dad’s classical guitar, but her own acoustic (the cheapest model Martin Guitars had to offer) would be the accompaniment to her early dreams of being a musician.

“I always had a distinct aspiration to be a musician,” Kane said. “I kind of have a tendency towards being pessimistic with myself. It seemed like an impossible endeavor.”

The same things that sparked her to dance ballet also lit the musical fires deep within her.

“I loved feeling the music, the passion of it, the way some songs touched me,” she said. “No matter what genre it is, from ABBA to Spice Girls, they all have an ability to touch someone.”

Kane gained knowledge in music from not only what she heard on the radio, but other sources as well.

“I never tried to act so cool that I tried to hide the fact I was listening to really bad pop music,” Kane said. “On my own, when I started listening to what I liked, there was a point in country music that I was listening to Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin-Carpenter.

“Also, my brother was a DJ in college, and he was bringing home Gordon Lightfoot, the Eagles and Miles Davis.”

Kane’s music has enveloped styles from all of these artists and more. Her music is practically indescribable. A close description would be to say she brushes the edges of country and folk and blends those genres into her own original pop music sound.

Kane’s latest CD, “A Thousand Girls,” encompasses these elements with others, as it sometimes even hints of jazz with the help of a saxophone and piano.

She sums up her style best by saying, “It’s hard to describe music these days since there are so many genres. You could say my writing and production lean towards pop, and the music leans toward folk.”

A lot of the goals Kane has set for herself at this point deal with songwriting.

“Eventually I want to have a band and work with the best musicians I can,” she said. “But that requires me to become a better songwriter.”

Kane is very analytical about her songwriting. She has the ability to break down any of life’s complex struggles into a visceral culmination of the obvious. Her inspiration to write comes mainly from two levels.

“A lot of it is just from watching people,” she said. “There’s a lot that I find humorous about human nature. The other is from goals within myself. They don’t have to be about me, though.”

Kane is currently in the middle of a grueling Midwest tour gaining support for her latest album.

“A Thousand Girls” is a milestone for Kane, as she has grown in many ways since her debut, “This Time Last Year.”

“The main difference is maturity,” Kane said. “After I did my first one, I had an agent call me, and he threw me out on the road instantly.”

Her first album was recorded in a friend’s basement. Basically, when she was tossed into the wind to tour, she was a fresh artist — a little scared and a little confused.

With her second album, that all changed.

“The goal was to have a broader sound, reach a wider audience,and have different textures and layers,” she said.

Despite all of her hard work, Kane still finds time for herself.

“I love to hike,” she said. “I’ve already gone to four different parks here in Iowa. Writing is the ultimate free time for me, though.”

To many, being a struggling female musician might seem an impossible battle. Kane believes that the pressure associated with that isn’t solely placed on people like her.

“I think there’s pressure in music being a man or a woman,” she said. “Even the Garth Brooks’ in the world have their share of troubles.”

Kane has faced a lot of challenges on her journey as a musician. She said the hardest thing is the temptation of musicians at her level, between struggling and making it, looking at certain things as better than others.

Kane cited an event she played for in 1997 called “Women’s Work.” It was a compilation album that she didn’t get paid for because she wasn’t as famous as the other acts.

“If you get to the point where you think ‘This club is better than me, and I don’t have to get paid,’ you’ll diminish your self esteem,” she said.

With all the struggles this musician has had to face, the question at hand is whether she is happy.

“Yeah, that can change all the time. Happy for me is saying I’m at peace right now in our little journey, and I can say ‘yes’ to that.”

Kane will perform at The M-Shop Friday at 9 p.m. Tickets are $4 for students and $5 general admission.