Writing songs is obviously a significant accomplishment. But for artists, the work doesn’t stop there. For instance, picking which of the songs you’ve just written are going to make the final cut of your new album is a task that often doesn’t come easy.

So, for her new album Red, how did Taylor Swift approach this process?

“I wrote so many songs for this album,” she tells CBS Local in a recent interview. “I wrote about 30 songs that I had to choose from.”

“You have your favorites as you go along,” she explains, “and those are the first to make the track list.”

But then the process gets much more difficult. “It becomes absolute gridlock,” Taylor says, “trying figure out which ones you’re going to have to cut from the record.”

Her solution, then, when it came to picking songs for Red? Making sure all emotional bases were covered.

Taylor’s process, she says, is to “choose songs based on the emotions they convey, and how they might be able to help somebody through what they’re going through, no matter what that is.”

So in terms of picking the 16 songs on Red, “I wanted every emotion on the record to take up one slot.” That way, she explains, “no matter what you’re going through, if you need a song, you can find it somewhere on the record.” In other words, whatever personal crises or issues you’re dealing with, there’s a song on Red “that’s going to say how you feel.”

Red was also, she says, about “expanding and learning, and taking risks I’ve never taken before.”

Red is in stores and digital outlets beginning Oct. 22.

- Kurt Wolff, CBS Local