as a writer - what's your voice vs. what you're listening to?

Dear Reader,

How much Folklore is too much Folklore?

I ask for a friend.

Lies, you say. This is a self-serving request.

You know me well already. I ask for me.

Swaying dramatically in the driver’s seat to “I can see you staring, honey/Like he’s just your understudy/like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” at a stoplight. Mouthing each f-bomb (of which there are a delicious, but not shocking or inappropriate amount) as I run to the coffee shop a block from my office. (BTW, remind me to tell you the story of the time a colleague asked me if I swear in my head, and what it looks like in my brain space when I do it. It was a delightfully eloquent conversation about the merits of a good swear, and the space in which it takes to get it right. The balance, she’s delicate.)

But seriously: Folklore.

I wrote The Right Kind of Light’s really ragged outline in my head at an Ed Sheeran concert (inspired by “Photograph”, thankyouverymuch), and spent the year drafting it to X. Reputation came out around draft 3, and the beat was too strong for my girl Gin, so we stuck with Ed’s ÷. I started querying, and now here we are. But Folklore would have DRIVEN Ginny’s story. Taylor might have taken the wheel and driven Ginny off a cliff for all I know, but I would HAVE BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME, in the backseat, squealing my head off that a.) Taylor took the wheel of my car and holy shit, and b.) how do you groove along to “rosé with your chosen family/and it woulda been sweet if it coulda been me” as you fly like a bird to your death with Taylor Swift and your MC?

I have a problem.

So the larger question, outside of my Folklore love, and my bow-down appreciation for Taylor Swift’s sister album Evermore: is it bad to let your artistic voice be driven so erratically by another artist’s voice?

Once upon a time, there were plot points that were derived directly from Ed’s “Photograph” that I thought were a nod to the concert where I had my grand flash of My First Novel, but eventually all but two of them were removed. (Read my book! You’ll know! They’re very obvious!) Those pieces were removed because they ceased to make sense, they didn’t move the book along, etc. All the legitimate reasons why anything is ever cut from a novel.

I sincerely hope  that while people read my work, they wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I look a good mellow jam, occasionally intercepted by banging pop Or, Carole King’s entire catalog. There’s definitely a thread (an invisible string, if you will I’M SO SO SORRY I can’t stop), that pulls an album along start to finish, and if a voice is distinct enough, that same thread pulls an artist through a career. Obviously, the metaphor works for writers as well. I like to think that my portfolio pieces compliment each other, rather than fight, and they’ve all been driven by different playlists on my iPhone.

What do you think? Is it bad to be so immersed in an album that even your three-year knows the words to every song? Does it inhibit your process?

More so, would you miss that music if it was gone?

​Let me know!

Love you to the moon and to Saturn,
Stephanie