A Little Life List: When You Need to Shake it Off
What Taylor Swift teaches writers and artists about alllllll the Eras!
Little Life Lists are for the complicated, unruly things life throws at us. I encourage you to write your own, too. With coffee. xoxo
Taylor Swift commanded the stage on the last night of The Eras tour, sparkling in her embrace of all the stages she’s so far experienced of being a woman. She shared this in her warm, authentic, collaborative way. And I got to BE THERE!
She’s vibrant. She’s sexy. She’s funny. She’s poetic. She’s collapsed on the floor. She’s hard-working. She’s dealing with the stress of modern female life.
She’s dreaming. She’s dancing. She’s whispering in the ears of 80,000 women in the room and they are all singing back with everything they’ve got.
Make your audience feel.
It’s so hard creatively to make someone else feel something, but Taylor Swift opens her own heart and life up to connect with the emotions of women and girls of all ages.
The whole of Vancouver called itself Swiftcouver for the days of her tour, her music poured out of every shop, specials abounded in all the restaurants, the Metro had images of friendship bracelets as stop signs, the city was awash with glitter and sparkle and felt like a giant birthday party.
All of this is because she makes people feel and she does that by being herself. It’s SO much harder to do than it seems.
Trust your voice.
My daughter was the one who begged to go to this. Happily, I went along, glad for three nights alone with her.
But as I watched the lips move of women in cafes or beside me everywhere, reciting the words that Taylor Swift wrote, I was singing all the words, too. I know most of the 46 songs she played. She trusts her experience and voice and shares it—the confidence that must take, I’m guessing, comes from turning down Mean Girl on her Shoulder and actually SHAKING IT OFF.
46 songs.
Which leads me to:
Work hard.
Taylor Swift performed for three and a half hours, working her way through 18 albums. Those numbers, that stamina, the sheer vitality of it all (as I stood in front of my seat noticing my feet hurt!) is a testament to what hard work can look like.
Love what you do.
Here’s a sneak peek of that epic final night. The LOVE is everywhere. Feel it in your creative work whichever Era you’re in.
Reading more: Many of you have been reading The Salt Path with me, which was our November Life-Changing BookClub pick. What a memoir!
But what happened to December? Well, reality did, alongside a great conversation with
who said: “Um, really? A book EVERY MONTH? Do your readers want that? Do you?”Amanda is a brilliant editor with such thoughtful insights into what readers want in their inboxes that she gave me pause. With the season rapidly approaching, the idea of throwing more reading at you felt, well, PRESSURED. And I want this space to feel like a magical garden where you get to hang out and drink coffee with me and talk about books, writing, your life, mine, and what it means to be creative in the world.
So, quick question:
Tell me! How are you? What are you reading? Any Substacks you recommend? Have you commented on this thread about The Salt Path yet?
Alice
xox
If you’re new here, my name is Alice Kuipers and I’m a writer, mother and dog-owner transplanted twenty years ago to the Canadian prairies from England. I’ve published fourteen books in 36 countries and my writing has been described as: “For storytellers and story lovers,” by Kirkus Reviews; ‘Gorgeous, heart-ripping, important,” by VOYA; and “Intense and wonderful” by Bif Naked.
Join me for a coffee break on my Substack: Confessions & Coffee.
Xoxo
I wish I could remember where I read this, but one of the best explanations of why Taylor Swift is truly adored by so many age groups was something to the effect of "she makes girls feel seen and women feel remembered." And I thought yes, there's something to that.
Alice, I love your comments about Taylor Swift - and omg - 3.5 hours of hard work, that because it is something she loves doing, isn't hard at all for her to do, or for her listeners to hear!
Not that listening to songs/music is ever difficult to me. I have been doing deep cleaning of my 5 yr old house (it's not new any longer!) over the last few weeks and listening to my party music while I worked.
And in the back of my mind, as I listened to fabulous 60s/70s/80s music (and some new discoveries through my daughter) I thought of the magic that these artists have left as their legacy to the world.
Then I wondered what I will have left when it is my turn to depart (at 73 I'm here for another couple of decades at least!) and I thought of my book, Dream Sisters, and I thought of my children/grandchildren, and then a friend said that my smile was my legacy to the world! Wasn't that lovely!
A comment on the book club - it takes time to get the book from the library if they have it, so maybe let us know what the next book will be and maybe the library will have it. Then it takes time to read it!
After finishing The Salt Path I got the next one, The Wild Path, and have just finished it. I made note of this paragraph in the last chapter.
"Don't 'be careful on the stairs', run up them, run as fast as you can, with no fear of clocks ticking or time passing. Nothing can be measured in time, only change, and change is always within our grasp, always simply a matter of choice."
(I am going to the library this morning to get her next book, The Landlines.)
And this coming year, there is going to be a change! I am going to conquer my fear of the unknown, and work out how to write my own Substack - and not just write comments on Alice's Substack!
(However, in November's Children's Book Insider, you, Alice, had an article on how to do it, so I will read that! And then do it!)
Have a wonderful restful holiday season wherever you are, Northern or Southern Hemisphere. It is developing into a warm summer here in New Zealand.
XXX