The editing happens in real time while I’m writing. 99% of the time, I’m writing the final lyrics in the first hour of writing that song. I’m not into going back and editing because I trust my gut, and I put a lot of trust in my subconscious letting itself flow through me. So lyrically, there’s not very many edits that happen.

I’ll revise a poem if I’m not happy with it, just to get it to a point where I’m like, “Well, I guess this will do.” But I always feel like the best poems come out almost exactly right the first time. The kinds of poems that I do more slowly and revise more, they never feel completely finished. I actually feel the same about essays. I really like to write essays all at once. Then I’m only really making small edits from there. I’ll just think about them for so long that I feel like, “Okay, now I know exactly how to write this”.

Sometimes, there will be songs [for which] I finish the lyrics years later. I try not to listen to my own music until time has passed. It’s like, “Maybe I should have put that word in there.” But I think it’s because I studied English literature, for me, the most important part, the bit I get the most out of as a consumer of music, as an enjoyer of music, is the lyrics. So for me, I really care. I try things out, I try different versions, I will sing different versions, and it’s a sort of long process [that] feels like I’m excavating dinosaur bones with a little toothbrush.

I actually really love editing poetry. It’s my favorite part. I love how you can change just one word and it suddenly elevates the line or even the whole poem. When I’m writing poetry, I’m looking and reading through and I’m really interrogating each word and trying to figure out: Is this the best word? Is this exactly what I’m trying to say at this moment? And I do a lot of reading aloud because cadence and rhythm are really important to me. I try to feel where the lines are sitting or where the stresses are, where the hits and the rhythm are. I also like to use those read-aloud functions on the computer because I feel like if it can still sound somewhat bearable with this monotone voice reading it, then that’s probably going to be alright—it’s the final test.