what writers can learn from taylor swift buying her masters back

It was a big week for Swifties. In case you hadn’t heard (in which case, how?), Taylor Swift was able to negotiate the sale of her masters back to her, which has been a goal of hers since they were sold in 2019.

I’m not going to go into details of why she started re-recording the albums that were sold, but, as writers, I think there are some lessons we can take from her fight to own her own work,


it’s okay to let spite power your creative pursuits

“People often greatly underestimate me on how much I'll inconvenience myself to prove a point,” Taylor said once. And it’s true. She started to re-record every song at her own personal cost, simply because she knew it would devalue the original albums.

As writers, we face a lot of rejection and setbacks. You simply cannot exist in this industry and have everything go right for you 100% of the time. And it’s okay to take those rejections that say they “don’t see the vision” or “didn’t relate to the concept” and let that fuel you to make your writing even better.


it’s okay to shelve a project

Taylor is a big nostalgia girlie. I Look in People’s Windows anyone? Being addicted to the “if only”? Not to be completely parasocial, but I think re-recording the first four albums brought up a lot of ~feelings~ for her, probably both good and bad. With reputation, Taylor recorded it when she was in a very different place in her life. She had something to prove, a comeback to mount, and you can hear that rawness, that grit, in the songs.

She knew that re-recording the album would bring her back to those feelings, and, at this point in her life, she’s in a place where she seems truly happy. She finished a record-breaking tour. She has a healthy relationship. She has so many reasons to look forward, not backwards.

We similarly have to take stock of what we as writers are working on and decide if it’s worth it to dive into the emotions of whatever we’re working on. Sunk-cost fallacy feels so real sometimes, like we have to keep going on things because we already put time into them.

Sometimes, writing certain things can put us in a place we shouldn’t be. And we should know that it’s okay to say no and honor the work we’ve done by setting it aside.

no matter what you do, people are going to disagree with your choices

For the most part, I’d say the majority of fans were super supportive of Taylor’s choice to not re-record reputation. But of course, there was the contingent of folks who were complaining that we’d never get the re-recording.

You cannot write for everyone. People will dislike what you write. They will say it’s bad. They will tear it down. But none of that means it’s true. We have to write for the people who get it, the people who are our readers. Focus on the positive, even when the negative seems all-encompassing. Surround yourself with the ones who love you and support you.

All we have is our words, and to get them down on paper is a brave thing, no matter the reception.