Interviews with Elle

An interview with Charity Marie

An interview with Charity Marie - <3 , May 2022

You've been writing since you were 14. What genres do you write in?
I primarily write in the fantasy genre regardless of age group, but I'm working on a CIA action/adventure thriller series as well for adults. I frequently can be found writing nonfiction and have published over 100 articles in the last ten years! My most recent nonfiction acceptance is for The Writer magazine and goes on sale July 12th nationwide.

Do you read in the same genres that you write in?
Oh! Absolutely! I read all the time, especially now that I'm self-employed and can control my own schedule.

What has been the hardest thing for you so far on your writing journey?
Hmmm... that's a tough one. I think it might be honoring my own writing voice. There's so much noise in the world now as compared to twenty years ago and you can get lost in it. And everyone has an opinion about writing, especially now that self-publishing has become popular. So I find myself guarding my writing voice fiercely. My team, which includes a number of wonderful specialists, knows to do so as well and I'm honored that they do. The most important thing a writer has is their unique voice.

What inspires you? Where do you get your ideas from?
As cliche as it sounds: everything! My brain is always "on" - and all my senses are always engaged. I have learned to tune outward all the time and will pick up on details and things others miss. Just yesterday, I paid a visit to our local mall, something I haven't done in two years. I sat at a table and to my right was a young lady talking animatedly with a young man. I watched them regularly out of the corner of my eye, banking away the details of her platinum hair, shrill laughter, and heavy makeup in my brain. Who knows, she might become a character one day.

I also ask a lot of "What if" questions. In the last couple of years - those what if's have included, "What if an American girl had to live in Japan with her family and came of age there? What might her life look like?" Cherry Blossom Tree What if leprechauns lost their luck? Jason, Lizzy, and the Luckless Leprechauns What if a girl adopted a dragon? How to Adopt a Dragon

I find asking questions to be an excellent way to drive into a character or story.

Do you have a favourite author? Or perhaps an author you view as an inspiration?
My favorite author has changed as I've aged. I literally can tell you favorite authors from each stage of my life. In middle school it was Walter Farley's Black Stallion series, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Judy Blume. In college it was Terry Brooks and the Sword of Shannara series where I realized fantasy is my absolute favorite genre - a love that's still with me 22 years later. I spent two months one summer reading every single one of his books - borrowing them en masse from my local library in Clearwater, Florida where I was living. They had to raise the book limit from four to seven, then ten just for me! I also read Terry Goodkind during that period and learned some things NOT to do in writing.

I would take these books to the beach, lay under an enormous umbrella on a towel and just read for hours, then watch the sunset. I also went through an Edgar Allan Poe phase in college (around 2006) when I studied literature. In my 30s it became more fantasy - Sara Douglass (sadly, deceased of ovarian cancer in 2011), Elizabeth Hayden's Rhapsody series, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (which are some of the first kindle books I ever purchased and still own thankfully. I'm re-reading the series as we speak). Now in my forties, I've added lots of other authors to my cadre of favorites: John Grisham, Lisa Gardner, Lee Child, David Baldacci. There are greats as well: J. R. R. Tolkien whose books I own digitally and read over and over. I think I'm on my tenth read through and they just never get old even though I know the story backwards and forwards. C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling (don't lynch me, please).

What's the best writing advice you've ever received?
Just write.

It's simple but true. I read craft books all the time and was slowly but surely drowning in all the opinions, ideas, and rules for writing. It was nice to just write and see what happens. Something I've been doing for the last two years very effectively.

How many books and articles have you had published now? Tell us about them.
Currently, I have over 100 articles published, many which have been published in the last ten years. I mentioned The Writer magazine earlier - that article is called Throwing Out the Rules: How Ignoring Writing Advice Freed Me to Write My Way was based on an article I wrote and posted here on WDC (Quill honorable mention, 2022).

It will be the feature article in August 2022 and is my first truly national publication. I'm incredibly excited about it because it's a culmination of my 20-year writing journey. I feel like I've finally found *my* way to write, and that's something that is very important for every writer to find. The truth is, no one can really help you do that - you have to find it in your own way and it's a unique to you as your DNA.

For the first time in my life, I feel confident enough about my writing and my knowledge to try and share it with others in a positive, encouraging way. I have a new confidence in my writing that has come from a combination of life experiences and reaching middle age. I never realized how empowering my forties would be! But it brought with it a certain mental freedom to accept myself and just do things my way, regardless of what others think I should do, which is incredibly freeing. I finally can just be me. It also brought a sense of mortality with it - time is running out and I need to get my butt in gear!

I currently have two children's books published - the first is an award-winner, having received the Reader's Favorite award for best children's literature when it was released. Jason, Lizzy, and the Snowman Village is still one of my absolute favorite works. I didn't know a thing about publishing. All I knew was I was burning to tell this story and to share it with my children and children around the world. It took me two years to write the book but what I learned in the process felt like a decade. That first story unfolded beautifully and led to the second, Jason, Lizzy, and the Ice Dragon.

Strangely enough, that book was written during my divorce and has themes about grief in it that would never have been in the story otherwise. Book three in the series, Jason, Lizzy, and the Luckless Leprechauns is planned for release this fall. It's about finding and creating your own luck in life. Book four is Jason, Lizzy, and the Dark Fairies and book five is Jason, Lizzy, and the Lost Pegasus. Then we have the Ebondale trilogy, which is a spinoff in the Jason and Lizzy realm, and will be at least three books. There're likely lots of fun adventures ahead for Jason and Lizzy after those, but that's all I've been able to outline so far. The Jason and Lizzy books are a bit like my happy playground - a fun, safe place I can go to play when reality gets a little too - real.

Hopefully next year, we'll release How to Adopt a Dragon, which is book one of the Dragon's Peak series featuring Reyna, an 18-year-old who is desperate to become a dragon flyer. There are ten books planned for that series. How to Adopt a Dragon began, ironically enough, as a novella in 2016. I brought on a new editor to my team in 2022 who read it and said, "This isn't a novella, this is a series." So I revamped the story from start to finish, expanded it massively, and it absolutely developed into a book series as simply as a butterfly unfolding its wings for the first time. We don't have a release date yet because it's still being worked on as we speak.

On February 14, 2023, we'll be releasing Cherry Blossom Tree, a novella, which is a coming of age love story written to honor World War II and victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's also a love story for peace and a reminder of what peace means. I'm very proud of this story which takes place in Japan, a country I have never visited but which I researched heavily while writing the story.

I also write nonfiction about mental health under another pen name and there is a four book series plus countless articles about my daughter's mental health battles with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

What's one of your favourite reviews that you've received on one of your books?
"Jason, Lizzy and the Snowman Village is an instant classic."
That was one of the early reviews for the story and to this day, it's the one I remember the most. Having my work called an instant classic was and is amazing.

Have you had to deal with any negative reviews or backlash from anyone? If so, how did you cope with it?
My children's work hasn't had much backlash, but I experienced some negative fake reviews in 2020 and early 2021 from a troll I used to work with who posted a fake, bad review to get back at me for leaving my job. It was petty and childish, but still took me over a year to get Amazon to correct it. That still bothers me a little, if I'm honest - that someone would just be outright mean online anonymously to try and hurt my work. My nonfiction work on mental illness has also gotten a great deal of backlash. I've had death threats and been told more than once to kill myself. It got so bad, I pulled the books as best as I could and am working to republish under a pen name. I also removed my contact information from almost all my social media. My team now manages all the responses from that so I don't get affected by the toxicity. The most important lesson I've learned from that is this:
"First, they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you." ~ Nicholas Klein

Do you have any advice for others who are looking to get published?
Publishing is hard work and serious business. To be successful, you need a combination of sheer grit, absolute determination and persistence, and an unwavering love of writing. You will get told no a million times and have to realize no doesn't mean you're unworthy - it means try again. This year alone (2022), I have submitted 43 times as of May 22. I have a 4% acceptance rate (which is actually higher than the average). In 2021, I submitted 53 times and had an acceptance rate of 2.5%. And I've been doing this for 25 years! I don't say that to be discouraging - I share that as an example of how persistent you must be. Write the absolute best work you can and keep fighting to find a home for it. If you are persistent long enough, things will go your way eventually. So just stick with it. You cannot give up - ever - in this business. You must want it enough to not care about people saying no.

How hard has it been to share the story of your daughter's battles with schizophrenia?
That has been brutal emotionally. For four years, I've cried my eyes out on the page. I've wept with a grief that is beyond description and that grief lives inside of me every day. I've had to learn to accept the grief and not fight against it. It's now part of me and I've made peace with that. But my story is also, I'm realizing now, a love letter to my daughter. My editor is currently working on the books to clean them up and get them properly formatted for re-release under my new pen name. He helped me realize that so much of the books are about hope and love. I love my daughter completely and immeasurably. She may never understand it or realize it, but I'm putting it out there in the world, just in case. It's also a love letter for the world and a plea for people to stop minimizing and ignoring mental illness. It's a plea for peace and understanding. And also, because I just have to share this story with the world. I'm compelled past my fear to share it. It's that important, even though I'd rather just keep it locked away in a closet somewhere instead.

How much do you think your own life experiences influence your writing?
I think we are all the sum of our life experiences. What do we know without them? I look back at the person I was 20 years ago and am amazed. She was naïve, selfish, and honestly, pretty clueless. But I see other parts of myself that have bloomed and become stronger - the love inside of me for myself and others, a natural protective instinct, a verve for life, curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. My passion for family, for writing, for books and art, for poker and beauty. I have learned so much and yet there's still so much out there to learn and experience! So, I think everything about my life influences my writing - both directly and indirectly. It's in the topics I write about - which are wildly varied and cover a huge gamut of subjects. It's the characters I create that reflect the world I see or the world I'd like to see.

What are your future writing and publishing goals?
I hope to release 40 books in the next decade. I spent so many years learning about writing, and it's time I start doing it. It's time I start really honing the talent within me. I will develop a writing magazine and podcast to help other writers find their way and learn - Writer's Roundtable and Podcast is actively in development as we speak. I'm going to do everything I can to make the next 20 years count.

You can read more of Charity's work at www.charitymarie.com  .

You can also find Charity on social media:
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Charity Marie on LinkedIn