I’m procrastinating on my book so here’s my #paperbirdqanda

1. what got you into writing?

Too many stories in my head that needed to get out. Also, there's so much beauty in words and so much beauty in life and it's such a gift to be able to unite those things together.

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

Oh, wow. Definitely my English teacher. She's probably the smartest person I've met, but she's not one of those annoying smart people who brags about how clever she is. She's one of those quietly intelligent people (the most intelligent.) Apart from that, Rory Power, Shakespeare, Holly Black, Lewis Carroll, and Victoria Aveyard are big ones for me.

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

It's the sunset on a beach I live near, and that beach is really important to me. I've been going there since I was a baby. There's never anyone there except me, so I walk there almost every day and read for hours.

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

(In no specific order; you can also tell by this which sorts of books I like, so don't judge...)

1. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard

2. Queen of Nothing - Holly Black

3. The Darkest Minds - Alexandra Bracken

4. Wilder Girls - Rory Power

5. Truly Devious - Maureen Johnson

6. The Maze Runner - James Dashner

7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

8. Unplugged - Donna Freitas

9. The Scorch Trials - James Dashner

10. Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

11. Invisible Ghosts - Robyn Schneider

12. Glass Sword - Victoria Aveyard

13. The Death Cure - James Dashner

14. The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman

15. War Storm - Victoria Aveyard

5. what’s the significance behind your username?

Not much, to be honest. Ellie is my first name. (I mean, technically, it's not my real name, but so many people call me it that I often forget it's a nickname. I just treat it like my real name, so...) Mccul is also not my real last name, just an abbreviation of it.

6. any particularly stupid quote that you nevertheless love?

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - A. A. Milne.

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

TRASH. (I'm joking. Maybe. People get sad when I hate on my own writing so I'll just pretend I'm joking.) I think I'm always evolving and developing and trying out new styles, but I'll say this about my current style: my style for poems and fiction are very different. Generally, my poems are light-hearted, and I like to play around with their structure (I've written poems in other languages, one backwards, etc.) and my short stories/fiction style is quite dark, speckled with some jokes. At least, that's what I would say, but I don't know if others would agree.

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

My favourite artist is currently Conan Gray, but I can't choose a favourite from his songs. Also, this is a weird piece of advice, but if you're looking for a song to listen to before writing a fight/action scene, listen to "Run Boy Run" by Woodkid and/or "Believer" by Imagine Dragons. Trust me. They're really good songs to pump you up for writing a good fight scene.

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

In fiction, I don't like when writers draw away from the story to give backstory. It seems unrealistic. Like, nobody goes around their day-to-day life just thinking: "Hello. My name is ___, and I am ____ years old. I have three older brothers and an annoying amount of suitors pursuing me and also my dad left and my mother is dead. Ah, but here is my school locker." We don't want an internal monologue of someone telling us every fact about them. Slip it casually into dialogue, as it would happen in real life, or give us clues (e.g. maybe they have a photograph on the mantle, but the father's face is scratched out.)

10. should pineapple be on pizza?

I'm a vegetarian, and pineapples are usually put on pizzas with meat, so I couldn't really tell you.