q&a time! #paperbirdqanda

it took me way too long to realise that the "qanda" was q&a and not panda but with a q.

so onto the qanda, i guess. putting #paperbirdqanda in the text body for searchability.

1. what got you into writing?

i feel like i've always been writing - like i've always been reading - but it didn't really start being "a thing that i did" until sixth?? grade. i'm not really sure - so many of my memories from that time mysteriously vanished so probably six or seventh grade at the latest. i do know my longform-writing genesis though - i was too impatient to wait for the next book in a series i was reading to come out, so i decided to write it myself. needless to say, it was hot garbage.

2. outside of wtw/prose, who are your biggest writing influences?

T.S. Eliot? ee cummings? modernist poets in general? ocean vuong? at least in the poetry side of things.

for fiction i'm not sure. it's likely that every book [or work, in general] i've ever read has influenced me in some way. i get a lot of inspiration from film and music too.

3. what’s the significance behind your profile picture(s)?

it's one of my 23 crows and their name is jessica. they control the left knee.

4. top fifteen favorite books - go. (if you don’t know what exactly are your favorite fifteen, just name twenty you like.)

Here are 10. I’m struggling to come up with any more mostly because all I read are book series:

-Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo [all-time favourite] [the whole dulogy is good]

-Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine [the whole series is good]

-Scythe by Neal Shusterman [see above]

-Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir [lesbian necromancers! in space! a masterpiece]

-Magnus Chase: The Hammer of Thor [almost solely because Alex Fierro helped me realise that gender wasn't binary]

-Loki by McKenzie Lee [bi gnc angry Loki is a fucking icon]

-The Wanderers by Chuck Wendig [don't reccomend reading until after the pandemic. gave me a panic attack when i re-read in march]

-Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas [but only that one, the rest of the series declines from there.]

-The Miseducation of Cameron Post by

-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

5. what’s the significance behind your username?

honestly i thought it looked nice + crows are children and i love them.

6. any particularly stupid quote that you nevertheless love?

Can’t remember which of my friends [or if it was me] that said it but “Don’t make your emotions a Molotov cocktail.” That was an…..interesting mental health club meeting.

7. how would you define your current writing style? do you think this is your set style, or are you still evolving?

My current style is different per genre - for fiction I’d call it i-can’t-ever-write-longform, and for poetry it’s confessional in a beating-around-the-bush type of way.

I struggle a lot putting definitions on my own writing because I live with it, though I have had someone say they wrote "a much more [me] description" - not verbose, but not plain either.

8. favorite song(s)? favorite song(s) to listen to ironically?

favourite song would probably be uhh "City of Angels" by 24kgoldn, at least right now. favourite song to listen to unironically is that "ra ra rasputin" Boney M song. masterpiece.

9. a common writing error or trend that annoys you?

when people write out 5 instead of five. there's a specific grammar rule for this and i take it one step further by saying NEVER write out numbers in narrative prose.

10. should pineapple be on pizza?

i am opening myself up to a world of hurt, but yes. absolutely. It is the best thing and you can fight me on this.