Ella West

Today Ella West came to our school to visit the year 7 & 8's. She came to talk to us about her book Night Vision and how she wrote it. She also talked about her other books, but mostly about her book called Rain Fall.

She talked about the genetic disorder called XP, and how the main character had XP. She talked about how she was going to base Night Vision in Christchurch she was writing her book around the time of the earthquake, she thought that placing it in Christchurch so she discided to base it in Ashburton instead. She talked about how she needed something big to happen so she thought about the girl coming across a murder in the forest. She said that she needed to come up with how the murder happened. She had to take into account that it was at dark, in a forest, and the main character wasn't social. So she came up with that the murderer was disposing of a dead body with fire.

She also talked about one of her other books, Rain Fall. She talked about how it was based in Westport, she said that the main characters dad works as a train driving taking the coal from the mines. But everyone that words with or at the mines are at risk of losing their jobs because of the coal mine shutting down.

She talked about how she writes her books, and what she does to get them finished. She talked about writing 1,000 words a day so it would take her 50 days to write one book. She also answered our questions about how to write a book and getting it published. She said that she writes her books in New Zealand but is considered an Australian author so she could never get on New Zealand's top to authors list.