Book Spotlight with Nancy Chase

I'm so thrilled to share my good friend Nancy Chase's new book - The Seventh Magpie. I've been watching this book come together via Facebook, and Nancy and her illustrator have done so much work on it! I know they are both excited to have it out, and to share it with you crazy kids today!

Official Description:

Princess Catrin is just a child when her mother vanishes, leaving her a cryptic legacy: a priceless magical book and the warning that if Catrin ever loses it, she’ll surely die. But she is a young woman on the brink of a whole new life when, in a moment of defiance, she forgets that warning and triggers a catastrophe that shatters all her hopes.

Stricken with grief and seeking a way to correct her terrible mistake, Catrin risks everything on a dangerous bargain. Too late, she realizes just how much more she has to lose.

With advice from a half-mad witch and help from companions she meets along the way, Catrin embarks on a desperate quest to defeat seven riddling Magpies—magical tricksters who can shapeshift into anything or anyone—and win back her book or face losing everything she holds dear.

With each step the stakes get higher, and there are secrets she still doesn’t suspect. How much is Catrin willing to sacrifice to finally unmask the Seventh Magpie?

A dark fairy tale of loss and renewal.

Author Interview

Fill in the blank: If you like ________, you'll love my book.

Nancy Chase

I don’t think I could make a direct comparison with any one specific book, but one of my beta readers compared my book to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland. Another one called it "a very shamanic story, with shades of the Taliesin transformation mystery," and compared it to the works of Guy Gavriel Kay. Someone else said it reminded him of the Robert Louis Stevenson story, “The Song of the Morrow.”

For myself, I would add that you might detect the influences of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, The Hundredth Dove by Jane Yolen, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip, The Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: all beautiful stories that I adored in the very earliest stages of writing The Seventh Magpie.

An idea for a key part of my book was also inspired by one of my favorite horror movies, but I’m not going to say which one, because that might be a spoiler!

Be completely honest: how much of your main character is really you?

Well, I’m no fairytale princess, but other than that, yes, more than any other character I’ve written, Catrin is a lot like me. At least, she’s like I was at her age (which is seventeen for most of the book).

She’s hard to get to know at first. On the outside, she’s stoical and reserved, while on the inside she’s a roiling mess of unexpressed hurts, fears, and needs. It isn’t until she finds someone she can trust that she opens up and gains the confidence to start making her own choices instead of obeying the roles that have been thrust on her.

Change is scary for her—she says “no” far more readily than “yes”--but at the same time she longs for freedom and experience. She’s stubborn in the face of adversity, which sometimes is enough to get her through even when she has no idea what she’s doing. Usually she tends to try to reason her way through her problems, but occasionally her control slips and her emotions break free—sometimes with life-altering results.

Why did you write your book?

I actually started writing The Seventh Magpie 30 years ago, when I was 19, as a way to process my emotions after a youthful heartbreak that at the time just shattered my world apart.

The majority of the book was written in my early 20s, then it languished for years and years because I couldn’t manage to finish some of the middle chapters to my satisfaction. It wasn’t until I had another heartbreaking experience just a couple of years ago—not a romantic one this time, but an occupational one, when I had to give up running my farm, which I loved, because of an injury that left me unable to physically do the work anymore—that I was able to come back to the book with fresh eyes and fresh understanding, and finally finish it.

It’s interesting that when I started the book, I was only a couple of years older than the main character, Catrin, and when I finished it I’m now closer to the age of the Crone. It feels like a nice balance to be able to visit the story from both perspectives.

Why did you choose to go indie?

I didn’t intend to, originally. Which is weird, because I’m very much of a hands-on, do-it-yourself kind of person. I make my own soap. I make homemade cheese with milk from my goat. I’ve made bread from wheat I grew and threshed myself. I love learning how to do something creative from the very beginning of the process, from the raw materials right through to the finished product. So you’d think I’d be the first on the self-publishing bandwagon.

One of the many beautiful
illustrations by Katrina Sesum

But no. I had weighed my options and thought I’d at least try the traditional publishing route first. I actually had a publisher all picked out, and was within days of sending in my manuscript. But in the meantime I had been browsing the internet and happened across the artwork of English mythic artist Katrina Sesum. Instantly I knew that her style was a perfect fit for my story. Then I had a dilemma: Should I continue with my plan to go with a traditional publisher, which would mean I would have no influence over what, if any, artwork the book included? Or should I brave the uncharted waters of self-publishing and invest a sizable chunk of money up front to hire this amazing artist to do my cover art and interior illustrations?

In the end, I knew that if I didn’t take the chance, I’d always regret it. If you’ve seen the art for the book, you’d have to agree it was the right decision. Her art just shines and makes the book so much more magical, like some of my favorite old storybooks from my childhood. By going indie and enlisting Katrina’s amazing artistic talent, I’ve been able to make this book just as beautiful as I always dreamed it could be.

I’ll still consider traditional publishing for my future books, if that seems the best choice for them. But self-publishing has been an interesting challenge. It gives all the control and all the responsibility back to the author. Now that I’ve done it once, I wouldn’t be sorry to try it again.

What is the hardest part about publishing (to include writing, editing, marketing, branding, etc)

For me, first drafts are the hardest. I love the planning phase, when you’re coming up with characters, exploring plot lines, and uncovering themes. I love the editing phase, where you’re crafting sentences, honing your imagery, cutting out all the surplus verbiage until the prose is sleek and tight. Even marketing isn’t so bad. You just have to keep at it and not expect to see instant results.

But first drafts! Writing a first draft is like standing barefoot and blindfolded in front of a hundred miles of dark forest filled with brambles and stones and hungry bears, and knowing you have to run all the way across to the other side with a hundred-pound rock strapped to your back. No, not a rock. A hundred pound wolverine, who spends the entire time clawing and biting and struggling to get free. That’s what first drafts are like. They’re terrifying, confusing, and exhausting. But until you make it to the other side, you’re stuck with that squirming wolverine on your back, so you have to just plunge onward, no matter what.

What's your opinion on bad reviews?

Like every author, naturally I hope I don’t get too many of them. I’d be lying if I said otherwise! But people have different tastes. Not everyone is going to like every book, and that’s okay. There are plenty of great books that I didn’t like and plenty of not-so-great ones that I loved because they happened to appeal to my specific tastes.

Reviews are there to help potential readers make a choice, so a coherent, informative review, either good or bad, is fulfilling its purpose. Empty reviews like “It’s great!” or “I hated it!” with no further explanation are less useful.

What is your favorite book?

Oh, it’s way too hard to narrow it down to one favorite. Or even twenty favorites. If I started listing them, we’d be here all day.

How about if I just say that the most recent addition to my list of favorite books was Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane? I just read it a week or two ago. It was so poignant and beautiful, I wanted to crawl inside and live there.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I wish she had been more disciplined and developed consistent writing habits much earlier. Then she wouldn’t have spent so many years being stuck and not finishing any of her writing projects. But remembering back to what it was like to be her, I know she was doing the best she could at the time.

Ultimately, it all worked out fine, so I guess I would reassure her that, just like for Catrin in my book, in the end all those difficulties and seemingly catastrophic life events really did make her stronger.

What advice would you give to other writers?

Read voraciously. Read lots of different kinds of books. Write daily. Write the kind of stories you like to read, and if you don’t have a story idea today, write something anyway, just for practice.

If you want to get better, practice at the things that are outside your comfort zone. Learn how to write your first drafts without endless agonizing, but also learn to love the ruthless process of rewriting and editing until your words shine. It’s a multifaceted process, and no one can master every single aspect of it without constant practice. There is always room for improvement, but you mustn’t forget how to take joy in the raw creativity either.

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Thanks again to Nancy for stopping by, and don't forget to grab a copy of The Seventh Magpie!

Be sure to follow Nancy on Facebook and Twitter!