Life Inspires Art: Why I Write Powerful Women

From Written on Vinyl to Space

When I started writing Written on Vinyl, I wasn’t thinking about astronauts in 2038. At the time, my focus was much smaller, more grounded. I was interested in fame, intimacy, and the complicated humanity hidden underneath carefully constructed images.

And then, somewhere along the way, my creative orbit shifted.

I read Project Hail Mary. I saw the movie. Then immediately fell down a space exploration rabbit hole like the universe itself had decided to rearrange my brain chemistry and drag me back to my roots. Back to being five years old and completely obsessed with black holes. Back to being the college student studying astrophysics before eventually finding my way to majoring in English instead.

Maybe this story was always waiting for me in the wings.

That’s the funny thing about creativity: one story leads to another. Live inspires art in way you don’t always expect.

Written on Vinyl exists because of Stevie Nicks, a powerful woman who became larger than life while still remaining deeply human underneath the mythology surrounding her.

And this new story exists because of another powerful woman: Christina Koch.

Different worlds, same spark.

Representation Matters

There’s a reason stories about strong female characters matter so deeply to me. If you never see something, it feels harder to imagine yourself becoming it. Representation isn’t just about visibility, it’s about possibility.

When I was growing up, so many female characters were expected to fit neatly into certain boxes. They could be strong, but only in specific ways. They could be ambitious, but not too ambitious. Flawed, but only in ways that were still palatable.

The women who inspired me never felt small like that. They felt complicated. Intelligent. Emotional. Messy. Powerful.

And most importantly, they felt human.

That’s the kind of representation I’m always chasing in my own work, whether I’m writing about music, fame, or an astronaut receiving transmissions decades into the future.

Because women deserve stories where they’re allowed to take up space.

Sometimes literally.

Why I Write Flawed Women

One of the things I’m most interested in a writer is the gap between perception and reality. 

In my current project, Nova Ellis is a communications specialist tasked with analyzing strange deep-space transmissions. One of the transmissions comes from Kristen Hayes, a mission specialist and astronaut whose voice slowly becomes central to the story. On paper, Kristen is the kind of woman people admire from a distance. She’s brilliant, capable and calm under pressure. She’s the kind of person who seems larger than life.

But stories become interesting the moment those myths start to fall apart.

Novia isn’t actually the astronaut at the center of the story. She’s the one receiving the transmissions. Just like Vivian, in many ways, Nova is often receiving information rather than fully controlling it.

That distance creates uncertainty. It creates unreliability. It creates room for interpretation. And that’s where the humanity lives.

Because powerful women are still people. They make mistakes. They spiral; they hide things. They misinterpret situations. And they fail in ways the outside world never expects them to. I’m less interested in writing women who feel perfect and more interested in writing women who feel real. Especially in their PoV, where my readers are pushed directly into that emotional experience. There’s something deeply intimate about that perspective. It removes distance between the reader and the character entirely.

Suddenly, you’re not observing her flaws from the outside. You’re sitting inside them.

The Gravity of Powerful Women

The stories that stay with me are rarely about perfect people. They’re about complicated women trying their best while carrying the impossible weight of how the world sees them. That’s true whether I’m writing about musicians at the top of the charts, or astronauts drifting through the silence of space.

I think that’s why I keep returning to these kind of characters. Not because they’re perfect or untouchable, but because they aren’t. They’re brilliant and complicated and sometimes kind of a disaster, which honestly might be the most inspiring thing about them in the first place.