A Creative Chat with Singer-Songwriter Sarah Magill
On bus rides, brain time, and vulnerability
I was lucky enough to meet Sarah Magill years ago, when we were both writers at Hallmark. We bonded over our love of pop culture and became friends despite one vast difference of opinion—she loved Inception. I maintain my stance: worst movie ever!
Sarah is thoughtful, funny, reserved, and brilliant as a motherfucker. She’s now self-employed as a marketing writer and makes hauntingly gorgeous music as Quiet Takes. She was nice enough to sit down with me recently to talk about her creative process.
What do you like to write the most?
Lyrics and music. Both. It’s a three-dimensional kind of writing, except those aren’t the right kind of dimensions.
The way the words work out audibly and in time, it’s fascinating to me. Things can feel flat on a page that don’t feel flat when paired with a melody.
I want people to hear my music eventually, but I can’t worry about it when I’m writing. What I’m curious about when I’m writing is, am I communicating? Is this going to make sense? Are they going to understand it emotionally?
I’ve always written music. As a kid, I would make up little songs and walk around singing them to myself. I can still remember one, but I will not share it today!
I grew up in a family that read a lot. There were books everywhere. I had an hour bus ride to school. First on, last off. So I had a lot of reading time and a lot of walkman time.
Were there any lyrics that blew your mind growing up?
My uncle gave me Born in the USA, and I remember trying to figure out the stories behind the lyrics. I was too young to understand why this character would want to change his hair, his clothes, his face.
The first time I remember really thinking about how lyrics are constructed was when I stole my mom’s Mary Chapin Carpenter tape...she’s a really crafted songwriter. I loved her song “Where Time Stands Still” and how she could make magic out of commonplace phrases.
When I got older, I got into Radiohead, which was more about the sound, and Tori Amos, who is a case study in using specifics to get to universal emotion.
Tell me about your writing process.
I’m still trying to figure that out. I have a morning routine now, finally, that’s good. I do 750 words for my morning pages, where I try to get all my anxieties out. I wake up trying to change my life every day, so I get that on the page.
I also try to get down whatever dream I had before I lose it. When I started morning pages, I thought I would write things I’d share with people, but no. I do have a song that started out verbatim from dream notes, but mostly that time is just to understand my own brain better.
I also follow the advice of one of my favorite writers, Heather Havrilesky: write down what you’re proud of yourself for doing daily. A lot of times that ends up being not about productive things. Like, I’m proud of myself for lying down in my hammock when I needed a rest.
I give myself a lot of brain time in the morning. I attempt the New York Times crossword and drink coffee. Read some news. And then I start work.
I try to start with my music first, but that doesn’t always happen. It’s a hard thing when you’re a DIY musician, you do three jobs (paid work, making music, getting the music out in the world). Almost no one gets to do the creative work they want to do all day long.
It’s especially tough marketing your own music. You want to tell people you made something but still feel like you have integrity. It’s a hard line, especially in our culture, which almost champions narcissism now.
I do want people to hear what I make, though. It’s just not always fun, but there are ways to talk about your own work in less gross ways. I try to balance it by talking about other people’s work, too: I love music and I love talking about music. I listen to a lot of music and I want to tell people when I hear stuff I like.
Are there genres or types of writing you haven’t yet tackled, but would like to?
I’ve tackled screenwriting but haven’t succeeded at it. I completely failed at writing a Hallmark movie. I had a contract to write one, I completed the contract and tried my very best. But I couldn’t make it sweet enough. I admit, I’m not the right person to write a Hallmark movie. I don’t believe in their version of love. I wasn’t a good match.
That experience taught me, don’t do stuff you hate. I don’t enjoy watching those movies. Why did I think I was going to enjoy writing one? I was being a scrappy writer. I wanted to take every opportunity that comes. Now I know to let some of those opportunities go by.
I would like to go back to screenwriting, though. And maybe when I’m 70 I’ll write my one mystery novel. But long-form right now for me is impossible. I know I’m not going to be on my deathbed sad that I didn’t write a novel, but I’d be sad at not writing a song that I’m proud of.
How would you say songwriting differs from other types of writing?
Part of the difference is, it’s in time, it’s temporal. You have control over the timing. You don’t have as much control over the pace someone reads a book or any printed writing. With songwriting, you have control over an entire world with the words, the timing, and different textures of sound. You have everything.
Music also can be a powerful communal experience, where reading is usually solitary. The best-case scenario is you’re making music with people and being heard by people in real life, in real time. I’m not at a place where I have a big audience, but I take being part of an audience very seriously. I love the live music experience.
When I’m writing a song, I’m trying to get a melody that fits right. Sometimes the melody comes first, and sometimes the words come first. Then the chord progressions. Then the structure of the song. I have a keyboard and I just try to find one thing that makes me go—“ooh I like that.” Then I try not to ruin it!
The faster I sit down to get a crappy demo together, the better. That’s better than trying to perfect all the pieces. The fun part is working with someone else to improve it; I’ll bring the core of a song into the studio, and my producer David will add ideas, too.
I love the vulnerability and honesty in both your music and in your writing. Has that been a hard place to get to?
You have to find the right line—that level of vulnerability that serves other people and not just yourself. And find the level you’re comfortable with.
We have a culture of oversharing, where it’s glorified to be “vulnerable” with strangers—performative vulnerability. I think we praise that a little too much. True vulnerability is being able to be open and honest with someone you’re close to, someone you trust. Boundaries are good for us.
Of course, sometimes I feel like I’m being really clear in my writing, but I’m actually not. In the studio for the newest EP, David was really good at gently telling me, hey, you’re not there yet. It’s a balance, finding the way to explain what you’re trying to be vulnerable about without unloading.
What writing advice have you been given that’s stuck with you?
“Shitty first drafts,” from Bird by Bird. That’s a classic.
Just write. You can’t get around it. That’s the sad part. There’s no magic. You have to write all the shitty first drafts, get all the bad stuff out, and keep rewriting. It’s never over.
Someone asked me once, how many drafts do you do? I don’t even understand the question! Writing is just constant drafts.
What do you like to read?
I really love mysteries. That’s my favorite genre for comfort reading. I also love sci-fi. And standard good lit. Two recent favorites: for mysteries, Dorothy B. Hughes’s classic In a Lonely Place; for sci-fi and just great literature, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. My favorite thing is to climb into my hammock on a day off and read for hours and hours.
Thank you, Sarah! You can listen to Sarah’s gorgeous EP Weekly, Weakly here.