While writing, if you had to give up snacks and drinks or music, which would be harder to give up and why?Team snacks forever. There are times where I am perfectly fine writing in silence (and often do if I need to really focus, for instance), but snacks are just a general part of my day. I can honestly get through my day with lots of snacks and one bigger meal unless I eat a big breakfast, then I usually have to have dinner.
Which is your favorite season to write in and why?
One where I write? I feel like my more productive writing times have been winter? As a human in general, I'm pretty useless in the fall.
If you had the opportunity to live anywhere in the world for a full year while writing a book, but your book had to take place there, where would you choose?Can I test a few places first? And how long can I live there before starting the write the book? Offhand, I liked Greece a lot, I could see myself living there for a year.
What is your favorite word and why?Any word that has many varied and nuanced definitions, especially if they're contradictory. I still enjoyed getting to use "cleave," so I'm going to go with that one. Also portmanteaus in general.
What book from your childhood has shaped you most as a writer?I have threeish! Tuesday by David Wiesner because it's a wordless picture book, so in order to tell the story, you had to come up with the words to describe the pictures. In essence, that's what I do every time I have a story in my head (and all of us, really). The other one would be The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster because it takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary, plus you have to love the subtle jokes based entirely on word choice. And any book in The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin, because the characters were awesome. I also really liked Animorhps as a child. So there you go, that's basically me as a writer in a nutshell, it all makes so much sense now, haha.
Do you believe in the concept of a muse? What is yours like?Kind of? Not necessarily an overarching muse, but I would say that for each story, one of the characters usually becomes my muse as I write that story. So for PBox et al., it's the picky, loud, stubborn, particular, and persistent Nick. Other stories, it's other characters. Unfortunately for all of the others, PBox Nick is the pickiest, loudest, most stubborn, most particular, and most persistent character of them all. So he gets his story written to finality eventually... every time.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?I knew what I had in mind for spirit animal theme, but I wasn't sure what animal fit that, so I googled. A bat! They hibernate the longest if you leave them to their own devices. Also the PBox demons have bat wings, so it all makes sense.
