Taylor Swift organises her lyrics into three “dorky” pen-themed categories

nme.com:

Taylor Swift has revealed one of the secrets behind her songwriting process, saying how she sorts her lyrics into one of three “dorky” pen-themed categories.During her acceptance speech after winning NSAI’s Songwriter-Artist of the Decade Award, Swift said how she’s “never talked about this publicly before because, well, it’s dorky.

But I have secretly established genre categories for the lyrics I write. They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics.”She continued: “This sounds confusing but I came up with these categories based on what writing tool I imagined having in my hand when I scribbled it down.

I don’t have a quill. Any more. I broke it when I was mad.”Swift went on to describe the differences between each category, with “Quill” lyrics featuring “words and phrasings (that) are antiquated, if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets.

If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre,” she explained before quoting ‘Ivy’ from ‘Evermore.Fountain Pen lyrics, according to Swift, are her most common.