Ella West Visit

This week Ella West has now visited our school; in the first period of the day, all of the 7&8 classes went into our auditorium to listen to Ella West. She talked about her life and what she does; she also talked about her books. The first book she started to talk about was 'Night Vision'; as she listened we learnt how she got the idea for writing the book. 'Night Vision' she said, was inspired by a documentary that she had watched which featured people with genetic conditions; there she found out about XP, Xeroderma Pigmentosum. It is a condition where the skin of the individual is sensitive to UV rays, especially the sun, therefore she has to stay inside most of the time and has to take vitamin D pills. Ella West then mentioned that she wanted for the character to have a big event to happen in her life, and so she decided for the character to be a sole witness for a murder.  However, it needed to be big enough to see in the dark, as the main character is only able to come out at night. A car fire was then decided and the rest was history. 'Night Vision' has won two awards since its release, it has also been translated into Italian as well.
Moving on to 'Rain Fall' is based in Westport, it is also mentioned that one of the settings in which she introduces to us in the book was inspired by the house of her friend. Utopia Road was also mentioned in the story which Ella took as a moment to insert humour in her book. As Utopia Road was not as "Utopian" like as you may think if that makes sense. Those were the main inspirations for the book and then she also mentions that she added horses, because why not? (I agree).
After talking more about 'Night Vision' and 'Rain Fall' we then transferred into asking her some questions. We then learnt that her first books were the 'Thieves' series, but it was not the first-ever story that she wanted to publish; also the first 'Thieves' had to be completely re-written. When she writes a book she usually tries to reach a thousand words a day; in a separate tab, she keeps a word count to see her progress.
After some more questions, at the end of period one, our class then had some time alone with her.
We further asked, questions; we found out more about her, her name isn't really Ella West just as Stan Lee's real name is not Stan Lee. Another thing that we learnt about her was her mother has read all of her books and she thinks that the 'mums' in the story are her as well as the 'dads' is her dad which is not quite true.
Then again after more questions, our group, which has been on of the reason that she came to our school had extra time with her. There we discussed about the ending of Night Vision which we "criticized" her for, not so serious way. She gave us advice and told us why she decided to end the book that way; in the end, we were more than pleased that it actually end in that fashion.
Ella West has brought us happiness, entertainment and inspiration, I look forward to reading more of her books in the future, 'Sound of My Heart' which is teh book she is currently writing. It has been a very, very enjoyable experience being able to get advice from authors again.
Thank you Ella West!