Now and then she rereads the manuscript
Of the entire torrid affair…
Taylor Swift, “The Manuscript”
As I was beginning to write The Story of You, I was also ending a decade-long situationship (or whatever you want to call it — it felt like more than that word, but don’t they always?). It was a time of transformation, the pain of ending colliding with the joy of beginning. When The Tortured Poets Department album debuted around this time, it felt like a sign. Or, at the very least, a gift. Through Taylor’s words, I was able to explore my own feelings. In “Notes from a Tortured Poet,” I touched on what some of that album’s lyrics meant to me, but today I want to focus on one song in particular: “The Manuscript.”
Given that I was working on my own manuscript (and a Taylor Swift-themed one, at that!), I was, of course, drawn to that song by title alone. But the lyrics would end up meaning more to me than I would realize. Like the song’s protagonist (Taylor, I’d assume, but you never know!), when I first began working on The Story of You, I was still rereading the manuscript of my own torrid affair. Like watching scenes from a show, the memories would play in my mind — the good, the bad, the cringe (ugh!) — and, though I desperately wanted to move past them, I knew that ending was occurring in synchronicity with a book’s beginning for a reason.
It was all happening at once because I was meant to use it as inspiration. The lyrics go,
And the years passed
Like scenes of a show
The Professor said to write what you know
Lookin’ backwards
Might be the only way to move forward
As it had been for so many years, Taylor’s lyrics guided me as I wrote my own words and worked to love and heal and grow and feel. Taylor-as-Professor was encouraging me, as she always had through her lyrics and emotional openness, to write what I know, to look backwards so that I might move forward, and so I did.
I began to write and illustrate
The Story of You with this guidance in mind. I’d been doing this for a long time — creating content and books inspired by my experiences and emotions — but the lyric “write what you know” coming into my life at the exact moment when I was creating a book about self-discovery felt like a sign. It was the nudge I needed to put my own knowledge into the pages of this new book, to use the heartache and loss to inspire others to explore their feelings and learn to better understand themselves. And so, as I combed through my memories, using them to shape the pages of my new book in unexpected ways, it felt a lot like this:
Then the actors
Were hitting their marks
And the slow dance
Was alight with the sparks
And the tears fell
In synchronicity with the score
And at last
She knew what the agony had been for
In my mind, scenes from the past were playing out and I was using them as inspiration. Circumstances and situations and moments came in flashbacks that sparked new ideas. The tears fell (oh, did they fall!) as I went deeper into myself than I ever had before. The music mirrored the path I took as I made my way through the forest of feelings. Each song was a memory, each lyric a possibility for self-awareness.
As I danced and sang and cried my way through the albums that shaped the eras of my life, The Story of You began to come together. Each song had something to teach me. Each lyric was a key to self-discovery. I learned so much about myself, and I was able to take that knowledge and use it to create something that would help others learn about themselves.
Would The Story of You have turned out to be the same book had I not been in the midst of an ending as I began working on it? Maybe… but maybe not. The endings always shape what’s next, after all. I don’t know if this book would have turned out the way it did, or if it would have even happened at all, but I do know this: I poured my heart and soul into that manuscript, and now, when I listen to the last lines of the song, they feel like a sigh of relief rather than a rip in my heart.
The only thing that’s left is the manuscript
One last souvenir from my trip to your shores
Now and then I reread the manuscript
But the story isn’t mine anymore.
The manuscript for The Story of You is filled with souvenirs from my emotional travels. There are memories and moments from every era of my life written into those pages. But the story isn’t mine anymore. It’s yours…
Check out The Story of You: A Swiftie Journal & Coloring Book for Self-Discovery for more Taylor-inspired inspiration and introspection. Available wherever you like to buy books or pre-order here.
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