My inspiration for the stories I write comes from many sources. Everything from people I once knew to people I see on the street to places I’ve been and mistakes I’ve made and news stories and television shows and novels I’ve read and movies I’ve seen and that confession I overheard you say on the subway. We grab bits and pieces from where we find them, and there’s no explanation sometimes. I have found notes on the street. I have dug things out of trash. I’ve snapped photos of scrawled messages on walls. I’ve held on to memories. And I’ve carried around songs.

A songwriter who greatly inspires my writing died yesterday. I once said that I want to one day write a novel like a Sparklehorse song, and by that I mean the enveloping mood, the careful grace of every line, the images seen and unseen, the wonderment and mystery you’re left with. So many of these songs hold that heartbreaking quality of beauty I am forever searching for and straining to reach in my writing. I haven’t attained it yet.

Mark Linkous attained that and more. His influence spanned far wider than music.

I am one person out of many who will miss his songs. [Sparklehorse]