Six Impossible Things is the debut YA novel by Fiona Wood. A sweet and heartwarming story folllowing the life of 14 year old Dan Cereill as he adjusts to a life after his parent’s separation and the family going bankrupt. We were lucky enough to  catch up with Fiona for a quick chat – quick warning though, a few small spoilers ahead.

You’ve been working as a successful script writer for many years now, what made you decide to write a novel?

It really comes down to the simple fact that I enjoying reading more than I enjoy watching TV, and finally giving myself the time to try to write a novel. And no matter how good the experience of script writing is, you always end up pouring your creative energy into someone else’s project. So it was wonderfully exciting to start with a blank page and absolutely no brief.

What was your experience in getting the book published?

Lovely Simmone Howell (Notes from the Teenage Underground, Everything Beautiful) read the manuscript and suggested to her publisher that they might like to read it. And they did. Even though they loved Dan, they didn’t think it was quite ready for publication, and I went back to the drawing board with some notes from them and some more ideas of my own, and did a rewrite. When Claire Craig, from Pan Macmillan, read that draft, she thought it was in good shape and offered me a contract. But it was a year between them first reading the manuscript and me doing the rewrite – I was still writing TV scripts, too – and then nearly two years between signing the contract and the book being published, so, as is often the case, it was a longish road. Overall I wrote five drafts in three years. Recently I have been lucky enough to be offered representation with Jill Grinberg Literary Management in New York where Cheryl Pientka is looking after ‘Six Impossible Things’, and me.

Where did the idea of Dan’s story come from?

It all started with Dan. I was working on something else, and the idea of this angsty fourteen  year old boy kept creeping into the margins. And so I started writing him down as a character, and then I wrote a story for him. I liked him so much, and I thought it would be great if this wry, wordy-nerdy boy got to transform himself and go to the ball – or year nine social, in his case. That’s where his name came from – an anagram of Cinderella. I also had the idea of two houses side-by-side, identical from the outside, but so different inside, with a shared attic space. That’s where Dan and Estelle live, though Dan has only just moved in at the beginning of the story. The misread note was something that actually happened to me.

Dan is faced with massive challenges at quite a young age that would make most kids quite bitter and angry, yet Dan is still a well behaved kid who works hard. Estelle has a more “normal” family situation but chooses to rebel against her parents, why do you think that is?

When the family business goes belly-up and his dad moves out, it’s a reality check for Dan, and a bit of a ff on growing up. After hibernating for a while, he rises to the occasion, and he understands that there are new imperatives at play. He gets a job because he really needs the money. The safety net’s gone. And because his mother isn’t coping terrifically well, he also does things like make sure she’s in touch with friends, and encourages her to take the job at Café Phrenology.  When it comes to Estelle, yes, things are more stable in her family, but she doesn’t see an awful lot of her parents. She has quite a combative relationship with her mother, and she does not like being told what to do. She rebels because she is pushing against the restrictions her parents impose. And no one likes being grounded on the night of a school dance…

I didn’t realise Hot Chip was an actual band, are you a fan?

I love Hot Chip!

If you wanted readers to take one thing from Dan’s story, what would it be?

Dan risks his friendship with Estelle because he feels he has to be honest with her. Because that’s who he is. And it comes back to something Oliver says to him, which is that the coolest thing is to be authentically yourself. So that’s what I hope readers might take with them – that it’s worth being on this road to finding out who you really are, and then feeling confident enough to be that person.

Some musicians have been known to do this, but do you think you might ever hang around a bookstore and see if you can spot someone buying your book?

Ha ha. Good idea! I could offer to do a quick reading on their way to the door. Value adding. No, I haven’t done it, but it would be interesting – you’d get an idea of whether the cover is saying ‘pick me up’, and whether the blurbs are making people open the book and dip in. I’d need an invisibility cloak though.

What is currently in your To-Be-Read pile?

There are a few piles (coughs) – in the YA pile at the moment, the top few books are ‘This is Shyness’ Leanne Hall, ‘White Cat’ Holly Black, ‘Little Paradise’ Gabrielle Wang and ‘India Dark’ Kirsty Murray.

Any quirky writing rituals or habits? Where do you prefer to write? Cafe, at home…etc

I have an office away from home, with no internet. It’s the only way to get the stretches of time I need to get lost in the work. On the way to work I pick up a coffee.  When I get to my desk, I always take off my wedding rings – for me that represents putting aside thoughts of family and home – how much laundry there is piled up, what we’re having for dinner, who’s doing what at the weekend etc. So for the time I’m there, it’s just me and the work. That’s the theory, anyway.

Can you tell us about any upcoming projects/novels?

I’m about a third of the way through another YA novel called ‘Pulchritude’ – what an ugly word for beauty – about friendship and betrayal. And I’m at the early planning stage of a middle grade novel.

Six Impossible Things is available now at all good bookstores in Australia and NZ

Maria V. Snyder is the author of extremely popular series such as The Study Series and The Glass Series and various short stories to name a few. April celebrates the release of Maria’s new young adult novel Inside Out and as it is our current book of the month, Maria was kind enough to answer some of our questions for your reading pleasure. I should warn you, there are a few spoiler-ish moments. Enjoy!

Trella has had an interesting childhood, one that has left her with very little trust for anyone else around her, yet it was those people who ultimately Trella needed to survive. Was it a conscious decision to have Trella start from this place of no-trust to slowly understanding why she needed the people around her?

MS: Yes – I did try to have Trella start out basically hating her world and the people in it—except for one person. Then as she learns that not every thing in her world is as she had thought, her view changes with time and experience. I’m like to put my characters in difficult situations and see how they change.

Where did the idea for Inside Out come from? I’ve read it was a dream, but was there any other events that inspired the setting? I’m particularly curious as to how the concept of ‘weeks’ and ‘centiweeks’ came around.

MS: It was from a dream. But I created some of the details in order to turn the idea into a story. The idea to use weeks actually came from my daughter. She was mad at my son and told him she “wouldn’t talk to him again for a million weeks.” Then she paused and asked me how long was a million weeks. So I calculated it out and came up with 19,000 years. I tucked this little nugget of information away and then when I needed a way for the Insiders to keep track of time, weeks sounded better than years. Centiweeks is just like centimeters – my world uses base 10 for everything so centi and deci all worked well.

Originally Trella and Riley are lead to believe that there are vast differences between Upper and Lower lifestyles, largely stemming from lack of knowledge. How important was it to need the Uppers and Lowers to work together to discover a solution to their problems?

MS: It was very important since the uppers controlled all the mechanical systems. And also the Pop Cops encouraged the lack of knowledge between the uppers and lowers so they would not trust each other and wouldn’t compare notes and see how they both suffered under the Pop Cop’s rule. I was trying to show how making assumptions about people because of their race or religion is not the right way to go about it. That you need to learn more about another person before you judge them.

The harsh methods taken by LC Karla to control the scrubs and Uppers were eventually her downfall. If there was more understanding between scrubs and Uppers, would life be better for everyone?

MS: It would be better, but still having that division of people – uppers and lowers and different set of rules for each will make people unhappy.

Favourite holiday destination?

MS: I enjoy spending a week at the beach – any beach will do as long as I have sand, sun and an ocean to swim in

Can you tell us anything about the next instalment, Outside In?

MS: I can’t tell too much as I don’t want to give away the twists of Inside Out, but it continues Trella’s story and how she and the Insiders deal with a new threat – one from Outside.

All time favourite novel?

MS: This is a really hard question for me to answer. I have so many favorites and each is a favorite for a different reason. Since Inside Out has a strong female protagonist, my favorite girl power novel is The Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri S. Tepper.

What is currently in your To-Be-Read pile?

MS: It would probably be easier to list what isn’t in my TBR pile Right now I have a bunch of young adult books in my pile, Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins, Fire, by Kristen Cashore, the last two books of the Percy Jackson Olympians series by Rick Riodian, Ink Exchange, by Melissa Marr, Bad to the Bone, by Jeri Smith-Ready, How to Make a Wish by Mindy Klasky, and I’m eagerly awaiting Rachel Caine’s newest Morganville Vampire book, Fair Fight.

Any quirky writing rituals or habits?

MS: When I sign books, I like the color of my pen to match the color of the book’s cover. Right now, I take 5 different color pens with me and they have to be Uni ball’s vision elite pens

Any last thoughts to share with us?

MS: I like to add that because the layout of Inside can be hard to imagine, I posted maps of all four levels of Inside on my website.  Here’s a link: http://www.mariavsnyder.com/maps.php I was hoping my publisher would print them in the book.  But they are excited about the book and have created a website just for it: http://www.whatsinsideout.com On the website is a personality quiz to see what type of scrub job you’re suited for, and a video book trailer for the book.

Inside Out is available now at all good bookstores.

We here at yaReads love us a bit of Maggie Stiefvater. She’s the author of Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception , and she has two more books on the way. Maggie sat down with us this week and let us pick her brains a little. Here’s what she had to say…

So Lament is a book about evil faeries that essentially want to snatch Dee, the main character. How much research into fey folk lore did you do before writing Lament?

A lot. But it doesn’t count, because I did most of it for my own personal entertainment value when I was a teen. I’ve been pretty much obsessed with homicidal faeries in myth and legend since I was young, so I read every book I could get my hands on. When I wrote LAMENT, it was just a matter of consolidating. I do think it’s pretty true to the lore, though. The only really big original concept is that of the Cloverhand, which is all mine, baby.

How did you come up with your character names, or perhaps I should rephrase and ask what on earth possessed you to call your protagonist Deirdre?!

Hahaha! I started writing LAMENT back when I was sixteen and very idealistic and melodramatic and obsessed with all things Irish, and back then, I named all of my characters things like Deirdre and Fiona and Colleen and just about every cliche Irish heroine name ever invented. By the time I got to the publishing process with Flux, I had outgrown it and tried to avoid it by calling her “Dee” a lot in the novel.

What I was too chicken to do at the time was ask my editor if I could change her name, but I was such a newbie author, I didn’t realize that I could. And later (far too late to change it), he confessed that he hated the name too. But it turned out all right, because it did end up being important to the plot. Still, I like to think I’ve become a little more typical with my naming habits.

How did you choose your fearie names?

I went with old Irish names for most of the faeries — trying to stick with ones that were pretty to look at and hopefully not impossible to pronounce. Most of these aren’t the faeries’ true names — they’re the names that they’ve acquired over the years — so some of them have slightly more modern ones.

If you were fey, what would your faerie name be?

I would say Nuala, because I always loved the name Nuala (sounds good too: Nooooooooooola), but I just used it for the main faerie girl in BALLAD. So now I will be forced to choose something else. I’m not sure what — Maggie is a name I chose for myself when I was 16, so choosing yet another that really fits me is a bit challenging.

Dee plays the harp and I know that you also do as well. What else do you have in common with Dee?

Mmm, not much. Dee is a nervous-barfer, and I can’t remember the last time I threw up. Dee is also very self-conscious, and I got over any self-consciousness I had left somewhere around the delivery of my kids, when everyone in the world comes and takes a look under your hospital gown to see how things are coming along. Dee’s also able to sing. I don’t think you’d like to hear me sing.

I think I’m probably a lot more like James, if truth be told.

Did you model any of your characters off of people you know? If so, which ones and who?

Yes, I steal all the time. But I’m very insidious about it. If I stole someone whole-cloth, they’d notice. So instead I steal someone’s shyness, someone’s accent, someone’s bad habits. And then I reassemble them into an entirely different character. Still, I think a clever person who knew me could probably tell where I got some of my influences. Dee is rather like my sister Kate. And like I said, James is a lot like me. My husband shows up in a very hard-to-spot form in SHIVER.

Tolstoy once said that by the end of writing Anna Karenina, he’d spent so much time with Anna that he ended up hating her. Are there any characters in Lament that you dislike, or did not enjoy writing about?

Ha! There was a point where I was hoping that Dee would be hit by a literary car. I’m not sure why that happened with her, since I’m still in love with James from BALLAD and Sam and Grace from SHIVER, even after all the edits. I think it’s probably because I started the seeds of LAMENT years and years and years ago, so I’ve been around Dee for longer than my husband.

The following Q&A might contain spoilers.

Now I’d like to ask some plot specific questions. Firstly, how did you decide that Luke’s soul would resemble a pigeon?

Well, dove. I wanted the idea that a soul before anything happened to it was this pure, innocent thing, and a dove represents that idea. I also liked the idea that it appeared different to different people. The Queen obviously saw it in a much less flattering light than Dee, who was in love with Dee.

Luke’s soul was a dove? I swear I saw the word pigeon. Maybe I was reading too fast!!!

No, you were right, in a way — Dee saw it as a dove, but the Queen saw it as a pigeon and said as much at the end — because they both saw Luke in different ways. To Dee, he’s something amazing . . . to the Queen, he was just . . . ordinary and to be looked down on.

What exactly was in the pasty concoction that Granna was working on?

Mmm. Good stuff involving all the herbs and plants and flowers that faeries cannot abide. There is a lot of plant and tree-lore that relates to the faeries, and I’d like to play with that more in another novel.

Will we find out in Ballad (the sequel to Lament) who is responsible for hurting Granna?

Nope.

How did Dee’s family end up with a faerie hound?

It was a good way for the faeries to keep tabs on a family that had been of interest to them for a long time, especially after they began to suspect that Dee might be more than she seemed.

Was Luke in love with Dee before, or after he approached her at the recital?

After! Beforehand, he was definitely just thinking of her as yet another job that he really didn’t want to complete.

At the beginning of the novel, Dee is in the bathroom before her harp performance puking her guts up – is that something you’re well acquainted with as well?

Years and years of playing music in public means that I don’t really get nervous anymore (my agent tells me orange juice is great for settling nerves, by the way — I will say it makes me feel pretty even-keeled before speaking to large groups). Even back when I used to get really nervous, I generally busted out with goosebumps instead. But I do know nervous pukers and I thought it would be a pretty visual method of getting Dee’s phobia across.

End of spoilers.

What is your fave YA novel you’ve read in the last six months?

Tough choice, but I’ll have to go with SAVING FRANCESCA, which is surprising, because I never used to like contemporary YA that didn’t feature any supernatural elements terrorizing the main characters. But I was just writing the review for SAVING FRANCESCA for you guys and it made me want to read it again — so it must be love.

You’ve got two kids, right? How do you fit writing in around looking after a family?

Heh. It’s a very delicate balance. I have to say right now that my husband is amazing and supportive and no, you can’t have him. But he’s always been good about taking the kids out of the house and out of my hair when I need to get work done on his days off. They’re also in school three days a week, which helps.

But when it comes down to it, I wrote LAMENT back when my husband’s work hours were crazy, the kids weren’t in school yet, and I was working full time as a portrait artist to make my living. I wrote it in three hour chunks once a week — so don’t let time be your excuse for not finishing your novel!

You’ve got two more books planned for release. Please tell us a little about Ballad and Shiver…

I’m really, really excited about both of these, because I feel I grew so much as a writer during and after the LAMENT writing and editing process.

Ballad, the sequel to LAMENT, comes out October 1st. It’s narrated by James and takes place at Thornking-Ash the fall after LAMENT ends. The official descriptions for both BALLAD and SHIVER are here at my site: www.maggiestiefvater.com/forthcoming.html, but I can add that BALLAD is about coming to grips with the elements in LAMENT that were pushed to the side by the overarching threat of the Faerie Queen. It’s about what it really means for James to be psychic and for Dee to draw faeries to her all the time. It’s about James coming to grips with his feelings for Dee and vice versa.

And SHIVER. Oh, SHIVER. It’s not set in the same world as LAMENT/ BALLAD, and it’s the first unabashedly romantic novel that I’ve written, where the whole point of it is the love story. It’s about a girl who has always watched the wolves behind her house and a boy who must turn into a wolf each winter, and it’s happy, and sad, and bittersweet . . . and I’m really proud of it. I love the plot in BALLAD, but I feel like with SHIVER I really matured even more and played with words in a way I couldn’t when I wrote LAMENT.

We’d like to extend our thanks to Maggie for taking the time out to answer our questions!