For years I’ve been saying that I listen to her music because it helps
me get into the teenage mind when I write – most specifically, Zellie, because
I think a 16-year-old pastor’s daughter is definitely Tay Swift’s target
demographic.
I’m not her target demographic. I’ll be thirty-seven in May. I drive a
mini-van. When I was her age, Grunge music was all the rage. I have the flannels
and long-haired college radio DJ’ing ex-boyfriend to prove it.
The last time I confessed to enjoying girly pop music…the name Debbie
Gibson comes to mind. On the bus ride to school, Bill Ellis asked me if I liked
Bon Jovi or Michael Jackson better and I said I loved Electric Youth.
One tends to remember the most embarrassing moments in their life.
After that, I never admitted to liking anything that wasn’t Cool Guy
Approved – The Mighty Lemondrops, The Violent Femmes, Kate Bush, They Might Be
Giants, Blondie, The Cure, Uncle Tupelo, The Pixies, The Replacements. I genuinely
liked and like these artists.
But when I was home alone hairbrush singing in the mirror…I was all
about Showtunes, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Paula Abdul (!), Celine Dion and Mariah
Carey.
And forget New Country. That was like owning up to thinking it was okay
to marry your cousin.
Hence, there was a period of time where I kept all of my Faith Hill CD’s in Ani
DiFranco cases.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking Taylor Swift, or
Mariah or Faith – it’s just not me that’s supposed to.
But I do, and not in an ironic guilty pleasure sort of way.
I like Taylor because she writes her own songs and because she learned
how to play the banjo. She’s not the best singer in the world, but her
intentions are good, her words are heartfelt and she tells a great story.
She writes about longing and forgiveness, first love, passion,
heartbreak and getting your feelings hurt. I find her songs to always be in the
moment and I never doubt that she’s gone through the emotions she’s singing
about herself.
And that makes her relatable.
Who hasn’t loved someone that didn’t love them, or wished they could
take something back that they’ve said?
Who among us hasn’t wanted to ask our critics, “why ya gotta be so
mean?”
Plus, she basically called out John Mayer for being John Mayer-y in
Dear John and I think that’s something we can all get behind.
Change is my favorite Taylor Swift song, mostly because it’s loud and
rockin’ and makes me feel like I’m kickin’ ass and takin’ names.
Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her husband and their two kids.
With so many authors and books out there, it is no longer enough to merely write a great book to stand out and be successful. We must have a platform from which to build our success, but what does that really mean? Of course there’s blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and all the social networks in between. They’re important and I recommend doing whichever ones work best for you. However, there is a deeper, underlying thing that must be part of the pillars of an authors platform. It’s the easiest, and often hardest, thing for each of us to do.
Deep within an author’s being there is something that drives them to write. The hard part is, many don’t even know what it is, it simply is. Much like a muse, this deep inspiration is elusive and unseen. But there is an easy way to discover it. All one has to do is consider what they’re passionate about and the root of this muse will be revealed. For example; I’m passionate about leaving a better Earth for our children than the one that was left for us. It is reflected in most of my writing in some way, no matter how small.
I never thought to connect the two until I realized one could help the other. It was one of those a-ha moments that made me want to smack my forehead. Now, a portion of the proceeds from my debut novel go to my favorite organization that protects endangered species. Authors don’t have to apply their passion quite so literally as this but as long as they are aware of it and allow it to breathe into their work, chances are their novels will benefit from it.
“We find a purpose to which we are sworn, or answer the call of death’s dark horn.” ~The Book Of Counted Sorrows (a non-existent philosophical book made up by Dean Koontz ‘from’ which he adds quotes to the beginning of many of his older novels).
