I don’t think any of my plays are done right now.

You just have to call it eventually. [For example,] technically speaking, yes, our September Issue is done. It has shipped. But do I feel finished with it? Never. We were ambitious with this issue—we decided we couldn’t platform just one, “face of fashion” and instead went with three exciting covers who each have added something unique to the conversation about style. Having one solid image for a magazine cover is one thing, but it’s another to say something through three rich stories. It was an exciting challenge, and I give my incredible team a lot of credit for their dedication and endless hours. I can’t wait for you to see it.

I keep messing with it until it gets to the mix table. Sometimes you can’t just change the whole song, but maybe I can change a verse in the very last moment or a chord or the introduction to the song, or the song’s order, some fade-ins or fadeouts. It’s a tough process letting go, saying, “This is it. It’s going to be this way. There were multiple choices, but we’ve chosen this one.” But it’s also a relief because it means you stop wondering. You stop thinking about it and you just let the songs find their own way and say goodbye to them and hello at some point because you’re going to start playing them live and it’s a way to actually get to know your song once you finished it. I usually know. It feels like a release to let go of a song.

I don’t know the answer to that, especially with projects like Seat Assignment or Sorted Books, because both do still feel ongoing. The Sorted Books Project is my longest ongoing project to date, where I’m working in libraries or book collections with other people’s books and trying to work only with what’s there, to draw something out from the book arrangements I make.