i frequently think about how people who discredit taylor's creative process, or her emotional growth, seem to willfully misunderstand writing and creating art in general.
often, writers (of any kind) aren't writing autobiographically. but an artist creates in order to share their perspective of the world, their personal philosophies, their insights on life. how can you write about any of those things, without mentioning your own experiences? writing is a deeply personal art.
take one of my favorite authors, curtis sittenfeld. she's actually a wonderfully apt comparison for how taylor writes. some quick background: curtis is currently 47, grew up in ohio, attended an extremely selective and elite boarding school in massachusetts throughout high school.
prep ~era~
her first novel was called prep, about a young girl who grew up in indiana and attended an elite private school in boston. clearly drawn from her personal history, but it's fiction. the ny times even wrote about this very thing.
the man of my dreams era
then, at age 29-30, curtis wrote the man of my dreams, a coming-of-age-esque novel about a miserable young woman who, at 29-30 reflects on her life, her mundane misery, and whether she'll ever find love. it is a book of biting, clever internal dialogue, but the main character is deeply unlikable. on purpose.
to the blog earthgoat, sittenfeld explains her own fascinating with the excruciatingly awkward minute details of life--something that contributes to her extremely detailed, lively writing. she's intensely curious to the awkward, emotional parts of the human experience, especially as it pertains to young women.
sound familiar? almost like that experience of going from girlhood to adulthood is a huge well of inspiration, and exciting to revisit:
eligible era
in 2016, sittenfeld wrote eligible, a modern re-telling of pride & prejudice. she includes bits of modern choice feminism, reality tv, how we hide our true identities behind our phones... this wasn't a story about her life or her experiences, and yet!!!
she tells vanity fair that she relates or enjoys the grumpy, unapologetic mary, and that loves writing grumpy characters. t's a theme we see throughout her work (see above and below.)
and, again, her personal history comes into play. the book is set in cincinnati. this reminds me a bit of taylor's revisiting of nashville and pennsylvania throughout folkmore (seven, 'tis the damn season). it's fun to play around with your own history, beliefs, opinions, etc. in art. you draw inspiration from it!
you think it, i'll say it era
in 2019, sittenfeld wrote you think it, i'll say it, a collection of 10 short stories. like prep and the man of my dreams, the characters are very relatable--painfully so, at times. boarding schools and feminism and politics and the right to choose one's own misery (or happiness) are present. as a reader, you feel like you get a clear sense of sittenfeld's own personality and politics by reading, even though the characters are quite different. she excellently describes feelings of insecurity, shame, and self-aware hypocrisy (whether it's the liberal woman sleeping with a trump-supporter she hates, or the woman who has to confront her high school bully, who now wants to be her friend.)
town & country interviewed her about her background and inspirations. she touches on how age, maturity, and even politics can change how you reflect on your memories... similar to how taylor has described her relationship with joe, and her relationship with a post-trump united states, in songs like miss americana & the heartbreak prince (wanting to run away to safety with joe), or even dbatc (comparing their love to a lawless country.)
she mentions to the lifted brow that writing is therapeutic (but not a replacement for therapy), but she's still creating fiction... or at least a fictionalized account of something that happened.
she also says in that interview that she's not interesting enough to warrant a book or film--and that reminded me very much of taylor's desire to stay out of the public eye. at one point, her life felt huge and unmanageable because she was the it girl. and now, she ran away from it all to save herself and finds comfort in that (the lakes, ciwyw, mirrorball.)
rodham era
sittenfeld wrote a fictionalized "alternative universe" novel about hillary clinton, called rodham, in 2020. basically, it follows what sittenfeld imagines what hillary's life could've been, had she never married bill.
this isn't about sittenfeld at all! it's about another real person, and exploring her feminism and her politics and her life--and what that means for all women--through a fictionalized version of her.
even so, some of sittenfeld's personal life does sneak in. again, we've got the politics, the feminism, the classism of ivy league boarding school types. and she even includes anecdotes from her personal life in the novel about fictional hillary clinton! she shares an example in her interview with vox:
it's impossible for a writer to separate themselves from their art. you write what you know, even if the subject is something foreign to you. you find a way to take interest or relate to the material, because what's a novel or a song if not a story about a universal human experience?
