Emotion, Vulnerability, Destructive Voices

I found Taylor Swift's movie Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions profoundly moving. It's filmed intimately and largely without artifice. It also speaks powerfully to the moment inside the pandemic in which we find ourselves. 

"It's an album that allows you to feel your feelings," Swift says at one point.

I came across the movie unexpectedly and knew little about Taylor Swift--passing headlines, the occasional pop song, an ad she did for Coke, an article I read about her queer fans poring over her lyrics. The result was that I was unprepared (or perhaps perfectly prepared) to be walloped by her creation.

The feeling was so powerful that I became interested in my own response to the movie. How much of it had to do with being in a vulnerable state, as we all are at some level inside the pandemic? And how much of it had to do with Swift sort of going for it?

So, yeah, just interested in that dynamic of working on a project and hearing all these editorial voices, many of them destructive and desirous of killing the creative fervor. There are so many reasons not to write anything, and a lot of what I find myself doing these days is bantering in my head with these voices, reasoning, cajoling, dismissing, conceding, then reengaging. 

I think such voices can be important at times to listen to in shaping the story, but if the story has its own emotional energy, it still needs to exist. Readers don't have to read it. 

Here's a page from Frankie B of Night Deliveries. His artwork is impeccable and stunning, IMHO. 

A lot of voices pinging me on this story; it feels vital. I'm going with the vital.