Switching Genres

I've asked a non-writer friend to check this post out today because she's a fan of a certain super star. So we all have to pretend to be non-geeky and not introverted selves. You see, friend, we writers like to hole up in our work cave.

There's a lot of controversy about switching genres. If you have loads of talent, a dedication to your craft understand good story structure and take promoting (social media - these days) seriously and expertly, go ahead and switch.

So which writer just just switched genres and still went number one?

You've just watched* Taylor Swift in her smash hit, "Shake It Off" 2014. My take, in a brilliant stroke, she presents herself as self-aware and self-effacing, she has fun with her detractors and fans. In this "I am who I am" song, in spite of detractors she will always be true to the genius God gave her to develop. (And I love that.) Whether you have one sale or a million be true to yourself. There's always some sick troll out there who feels better by trying to make other people feel worse and may not be capable of love or in spotting it in others.
*I know some of you may not enjoy pop music, but think twice, not too many of us can claim to be literary writers, although...

EXTRA CREDIT:
Here's some info on the artist and her song from Wikipedia.
Lyrically, the song is dedicated to Swift's detractors. Swift explained that, "I’ve learned a pretty tough lesson that people can say whatever they want about us at any time, and we cannot control that. The only thing we can control is our reaction to that."^[14] In an interview for Rolling Stone, Swift further elaborated, "I've had every part of my life dissected—my choices, my actions, my words, my body, my style, my music. When you live your life under that kind of scrutiny, you can either let it break you, or you can get really good at dodging punches. And when one lands, you know how to deal with it. And I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off."^[15] With NPR she gave a detailed explanation of the lyrics:

With the song 'Shake It Off,' I really wanted to kind of take back the narrative, and have more of a sense of humor about people who kind of get under my skin — and not let them get under my skin. There's a song that I wrote a couple years ago called 'Mean', where I addressed the same issue but I addressed it very differently. I said, 'Why you gotta be so mean?', from kind of a victimized perspective, which is how we all approach bullying or gossip when it happens to us for the first time. But in the last few years I've gotten better at just kind of laughing off things that absolutely have no bearing on my real life. I think it's important to be self-aware about what people are saying about you, but even more so, be very aware of who you actually are, and to have that be the main priority.^[16]