Inspiration

Books I Love

I was made by the books I've read, and I'm endlessly grateful to the writers who showed me what fiction could do. Some books I return to again and again — not to borrow their stories, but to remind myself why I write.

I'm drawn to writers who trust their readers, who allow silence and ambiguity, who understand that what a character doesn't say can be more powerful than any speech. I love a novel that earns its ending rather than manufacturing one.

Places

Place is character for me. A story set in a specific, vividly imagined location feels completely different from one set in a generic anywhere. The light, the weather, the particular textures of a street or a room — these things shape how people move through the world and what they're able to feel.

I keep a running notebook of places that feel alive to me: a particular corner of a city at a particular time of year, a quality of quiet that only exists in certain landscapes. These notes often end up in stories years after I wrote them.

Music

I write to music — specific playlists for specific books, assembled while I'm drafting and revised as the story changes. The right playlist can shift my whole sense of what a scene wants to be.

There's something about music that gets under the conscious mind and reaches the place where stories actually come from.

Placeholder — Jessie will fill this in with her own inspirations, reading lists, and favorite places.