A Lesson In: Iteration

Inspired by Taylor Swift, of course.

I was listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989 Deluxe Edition album a few days ago (not Taylor’s Version yet… patiently waiting).

I hadn’t listened to the voice memos that she provides on that album in years.

When I re-listened to them last week, I found her writing process so much more intriguing than I had in the past.

I encourage you to go listen to the voice memos, but in them, she’s talking about her writing process and how she creates songs using different techniques.

She said it happens differently every time. Sometimes she’ll have a melody that’s already created and then the words come to her. Sometimes she’ll know the words but not have the melody all the way nailed down. Sometimes she’ll just have a concept and she’ll collaborate with others to finalize it.

What I found most fascinating is that there are points at the beginning of her writing process where she’s literally just mumbling words along to the melody.

Not a complete English sentence to be found.

She knows the general gist of what the song sounds like but doesn’t quite have the words behind it down yet. She just mumbles jibberish until she gets to the part of the song that is the most developed at that time.

And I just found this to be such a good reminder, that:

The completed product isn’t there in the beginning.

The first draft of something isn’t the final version.

An idea doesn’t have to fully be fleshed out before you begin executing on it.

You don’t have to have something fully finalized or fully thought out before sharing it with someone.

You have to work on something in iterations before it reaches its full potential.

A first draft could literally be jibberish and the complete draft is a Grammy award-winning song.

I’ve heard many times that when it comes to writing, a first draft of something should just be a “vomit draft”. Just spit out what you have to say, don’t edit it, just get words to paper.

It’s not going to be done and complete right then and there, but just getting your thoughts down is the first step.

So many times I feel like I find myself trying to make the first draft of something perfect.

I go back and edit my thoughts before even completing my full brain dump.

I think that before I start something, I have to know exactly how it’s going to look when it’s done.

I feel like the first draft of something needs to be the completed version.

I’m afraid of uncertainty and not knowing exactly what the end product is going to be stops me from starting things.

And I want to use this as a reminder that even one of the greatest artists and songwriters in our history (in my opinion 😉) doesn’t have a song fully fleshed out when she begins.

Her end product isn’t “perfect” at the beginning.

She doesn’t fully know what’s going to happen but she still executes on the idea anyways.

Maybe the song makes it to the album or it doesn’t, but her executing on her ideas to create a final product allows her to pick and choose her best work.

Consistently creating, whether the art sees the light of day or not, allows for improvement, practice, and iteration.

This is a frequent reminder that to improve at anything, you must iterate repeatedly.

Even Taylor herself says “I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try”.

I’ll be keeping that in mind when I feel like I don’t want to start something because I can’t complete it right then and there, or when I am afraid of the uncertainty of what the final product is going to look like, or when I feel like my first draft isn’t good enough.

The first iteration is not the last.