Spot the creativity Easter eggs in this Taylor Swift interview

Universal truths of creativity

You may or may not be a fan of the TSU (Taylor Swift Universe), but either way you have to admit that she’s a prolific creative who’s found a fascinating balance between art and marketing. I loved catching the universal truths about creativity that she wove into this recent interview with Jimmy Fallon.

At 2:46 — The creative process is ultimately mysterious.

Swift: “I love writing songs, poems, stories, scripts. I love writing those things because there’s a part of it that I don’t quite understand how it comes to fruition. There’s something so mysterious about writing.”

This quote captures my favorite thing about creative inspiration: when an idea comes to you and you can see it so clearly even though it didn’t exist a moment before. I’ve written many times before about showing up for creativity, about 15-minute timers and writing routines, about jotting down any scraps of ideas or inspiration you have, but that magic moment when an idea comes knocking on your door can’t be explained. There’s no feeling like it.

At 3:14 — The more you create, the more there will be to create.

Swift: “But I found that the more — the more I write, the more I keep writing.”

This universal creative truth is a celebration of first drafts, of experiments, of small steps forward. In my own writing, I’ve found that the more I write novels, the more novels I want to write. The more you reward your creative inspiration by showing up and creating, the more inspiration will come to you.

At 5:46 — The creative life shouldn’t be about suffering.

Swift: “I think that the experience of making something is just as important as how proud you are of it in the end. And I think it really informs how proud I am of something, if I had a really joyful experience making something. This is a pretty dark album, but I’d say I had more fun making it than any album I’ve ever made. Because I don’t think that art and suffering have to be holding hands all the time.”

I love this quote because pop culture has told us for far too long that artists are sad, broken, scattered people, creating in a depressed daze (and often under the influence of drugs and alcohol). To list one example: I stopped watching Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel because I hated the way the show pushed this narrative about artists. I’ve been told so many times that as a writer, I shouldn’t be happy and excited while writing my first drafts because they’re bad and I’m not supposed to love the process. I think art is about working through the hard things that happen in life, but the creative process can and should be healthy, joyful, and fun.

Bonus: At 3:19 — Stability can foster creativity.

Swift: “I don’t know what’s been going on, but in the last six or seven years, I’ve just … been constantly making things. And the more things I make, the happier I am.”

I may be reaching here, but I think Swift was playing coy with her “six or seven years” timeline. Any fan will know that between six and seven years ago, Swift met her long-term partner, Joe Alwyn, and has since penned songs inspired by him on five albums. While Swift’s success is her own, I think that the stability and growth that come with a long-term relationship can protect and inspire creativity in a special way.

Recommendations: What’s inspiring me

The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen — I think pandemic-era art falls into three general categories: 1) art to embrace the pandemic, 2) art to escape the pandemic, and 3) art that’s not not about the pandemic.

The first category is the obvious stuff, dystopian and apocalyptic fiction or pandemic nonfiction and documentaries, or the more artful portrayals of pandemics (both real and fictional) in this summer’s Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel or French Braid by Anne Tyler. The second category of Almost Everything Else But Especially Fantasy also feels obvious. It’s this third, more subtle category that I find fascinating: art that’s not specifically about masks or vaccines or weeks spent inside but also seems inspired by the experience we all shared.

All that to say: The Loneliest Time is a concept album exploring the many facets of loneliness. That might sound like a downer, but because it’s Carly Rae Jepsen, this album — like all of her others — is a joyful experience. It’s something of a new sound for her, more intimate, both lyrically and vocally, and it’s nice to hear a different register of her voice on tracks like the lovely “Bends.” Favorite moments include the aching “Talking to Yourself” and the wistful “Western Wind” (both singles); the adorable “So Nice”; and the title track.

Bullet Train — I closed my eyes A LOT during this movie (HSP problems), so please be properly warned by the “R” rating, but if what you need is a thrill ride with a full ensemble cast of marvelous character actors, Bullet Train is a damn good time.

Bear and Todoist (apps) — I am very very sorry for recommending two apps when I know most of us have phones cluttered with them, but I started using these two a couple of months ago and don’t know how I navigated modern life or the creative life without them for so long.

Bear is a notes app, pure and simple. I loved Evernote and used it for about two and a half years, but it started to glitch more and more in the last year or so. I hit a point where I couldn’t lose any more full paragraphs of inspiration to the app not saving, so I’ve been using Bear instead. So far, so good.

Todoist is what it sounds like: an app that gives you a daily to do list. I’ve tried Google Calendar, Trello, Evernote, a physical daily planner, etc., but nothing worked for me. Google Calendar quickly gets cluttered and overwhelming, I logged in to Trello once and never came back, I lost things in Evernote, and a physical planner didn’t help when I couldn’t check off everything on my list for that day. The two selling points of Todoist for me:

1) It’s a smart app, which means that you can type in “need to winterize mums in landscaping this weekend” and send it away, and you won’t have to worry about that to-do list item again until it pops up automatically on your list for Saturday. You can also set up a recurring task by typing in “skating exercises every day” or “clean the coffee maker on the 1st of each month” and that task will show up for each designated day on your to-do list.

2) If you don’t complete a task for that day, all you have to do is mark it for tomorrow (or whenever you can next think about it), and it will be there for you when you need to remember. You can keep postponing it if needed so it’s not cluttering up your list for today or getting lost at the end of a physical list where everything else is checked off.