Murder, tea, and the supernatural —with her passion for writing
and her interest in the paranormal, Yasmine Galenorn is supremely equipped
to write murder mysteries that have been dubbed "cozies with teeth."*
A prolific writer since an early age, Ms. Galenorn is the author of
eight nonfiction metaphysical books and has recently published her
second Chintz 'n China mystery novel, Legend of the Jade
Dragon. Her third novel in the series, Murder Under A Mystic
Moon, will be published in 2005, and she is currently working
on the fourth book. She is also embarking on a new mystery series called India
Ink. Both series are published by Berkley Prime Crime, a Penguin
imprint.
Ms. Galenorn has a B.A. in Theatre and Creative Writing, and lives
in Bellevue WA., along with Samwise and their four, fuzzy, older cats,
all of whom are an integral part of the Galenorn household.
Yasmine Galenorn's Chintz 'n China mysteries (Ghost
Of A Chance and Legend Of The Jade Dragon) have been
praised for their charm, quirkiness, and eccentric heroine —Emerald
O'Brien, an amateur sleuth with a difference.
Like many accomplished novelists, Ms. Galenorn's road to publication
was not an easy one, and her success as a fiction writer is due not
only to her talent, but also to her persistence and determination to
achieve her dream. She has kindly made time in her dizzying schedule
to talk with us about her books and the writing life.
*Linda Dewberry, of Whodunnit Books
The Rose & Thorn: Your murder mystery
series Chintz
'n China draws on your interest in the metaphysical. What
sparked this interest?
Yasmine Galenorn : It’s a natural outcropping from the fact
that I’ve always been psychic. When I was little, I was very
afraid of my abilities, because I was taught that the paranormal/occult
world was evil. So I grew up with a lot of inner conflict—here
I had these psychic abilities, and I was afraid of them. Finally, I
came to accept that there was nothing evil about it, that psychic phenomena
are actually a normal part of existence for some people. My belief
and interest in the metaphysical world were a direct result of learning
to accept my own natural abilities.
R&T: Before you embarked on your murder
mystery series, you published several books on magic and the metaphysical.
Did you consciously decide to tap into a similar vein with your fiction,
or would you rather say that your fiction was a natural outgrowth
of your interest in this area?
YG: I have eight metaphysical books to my name, and my first publishing
contract was for a non-fiction book. But I always wrote about the paranormal
in both my fiction and nonfiction. It’s just such a part of my
life that it seems natural for it come out in my stories.
R&T: Would you feel comfortable writing
novels that do not have a metaphysical or paranormal element?
YG: In a sense, my India Ink books will be more like that
(fiction without a paranormal element) than most anything else I’ve
written, although Persia, my main character, does have a heightened
sense of smell and an awareness of the natural elements that border
on the magical. I just finished the first manuscript for that series,
and I have to say, it was hard for me to consciously leave overtly
paranormal elements out. But they managed to creep in anyway, though
not nearly so blatant as in the Chintz ‘n China books.
Truthfully, if I had to leave it out entirely, it would feel like I
was writing a character who was lacking one of her senses.
R&T: As with all series, your Chintz ‘n
China books
feature a cast of recurring characters. How did you go about creating
them? And how do you decide which characters to "keep"?
YG: Well, in Ghost of a Chance, they pretty much showed
up on their own. As far as which characters to keep—if I can
see them in another book, if I can see little ways in which they enhance
the town, enhance the story, then they’re keepers. If they are
there to serve only one purpose for that particular book, then it has
to be clear they’re only passing through, because you don’t
want the reader getting attached to them and then wondering where they
went.
When you’re writing a series, the tertiary characters
actually become part of the setting. They, along with the stores and
local events, make up the town, which then becomes a character in its
own right. The fictional towns of Chiqetaw (Chintz 'n China series) and
Gull Harbor (India Ink series) have personalities of their
own.
R&T: The duality between the ultra-normal
setting of a Seattle tea shop and the paranormal produces a frisson
that adds an unusual element to your cozies. Do you have any idea
which genres your readers come from (fantasy, sci-fi, cozies, etc)?
YG: Well, my books are officially labeled "cozies," but
my readers vary widely. I have some crossover rate from my metaphysical
readers, of course. I’ve also found the Chintz ‘n China series
categorized under not only mystery, but horror and fantasy as well.
Oh, and one friend found it shelved under romance, of all genres, in
the bookstore. I think a good story and memorable characters will draw
in readers from most walks of life.
R&T: Tell us about your new India Ink series,
and how it differs from Chintz ‘n China.
YG: The India Ink series takes place in Venus Envy, a bath-and-beauty
shop. Persia Vanderbilt is 31, happily single, and fresh out of a six
year relationship after her boyfriend was carted away for embezzlement.
She moves back to her childhood home in Gull Harbor, on Port Samanish
Island in Puget Sound, Washington. She blends custom fragrances for
clients, and helps her aunt oversee the shop and the gardens where
they gather a lot of the raw materials for their essential oils and
bulk herbs.
Persia was born with a heightened sense of smell and
the ability to identify most scents, including cyanide. As far as her
character goes, she’s a bit more cynical than Emerald O’Brien
(from the Chintz ‘n China series), but she also has
more diplomacy than Emerald. And unlike Emerald, Persia can kick butt—she’s
very athletically inclined. Persia lives with her aunt in an old mansion,
together with the Menagerie, which consists of eight cats, three dogs,
and a TV-watching rooster named Hoffman. She barely gets settled into
her new life when she finds herself embroiled in murder and mayhem.
The India Ink series is more in the vein of the classic
mystery than the Chintz ‘n China series. But it's still
a cozy, still character driven. By the way, India Ink is the pen name
I’m using for this series. Marketing thought it was wisest that
I write them under different names, since both series are in the same
imprint.
R&T: You say you have been wanting to "make books" since
your were knee-high. What were your favorite books as a child?
YG: My favorite books as a child? Oh, too many to list! One of my
favorites was The Wizard of Oz. I read that book over and
over again, and I’d hide under my covers with the flashlight
to read it. I never grew out of that habit until I was old enough so
that my mother and stepfather didn’t yell at me for having the
light on too late.
I read all the science fiction and fantasy I could
get my hands on. Our local library didn’t discriminate on age.
They would let me check out anything I wanted, regardless of my age,
so I was reading books by Thomas Tryon, Michael Crichton, and Daphne
du Maurier by the time I was 12 and 13 years old. And I scared myself
silly more than once, but I kept going back for more. I also had a
penchant for the Bronte sisters by then.
R&T: How do you believe these books influenced
your path as a writer and what you are writing now?
YG: As far as the books that influenced me the most: anything by
Ray Bradbury. The book of his that struck me most—and not because
I liked it best—was Fahrenheit 451. Even when I was
young, I had a strong sense of what censorship could lead to, and that
book terrified me. More than anything, it made me aware of how important
freedom of speech is. Because once you lose that, you lose the freedom
to think. Bradbury also taught me something more than any other author:
poetry and prose are inseparable. We can weave our words and make them
sing.
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca was, and is, my second
favorite book. I loved the brooding sense of fear that she instilled
without ever being obvious, without resorting to parlor tricks. Du
Maurier taught me what innuendo can do for a story, that a well placed
word can make the reader catch their breath. She was a brilliant woman,
and she had a keen sense for psychological suspense.
My favorite book is another that I discovered when I was a teenager: Watership
Down by Richard Adams. Adams blended the mystical into the natural
world and managed to create a believable and fascinating mythology
within the scope of one novel. Though I’ve read it…oh,
it has to be more than twenty times, I still cry at the end. Adams
also has a natural ability to make prose sing.
R&T: Your life has had several ups and
downs. How would you define what writing means to you in this context —a
self-help mechanism, an outlet for escape?
YG: Writing is as natural as breathing is for me. It’s simply
a part of who I am, and if I can’t do it, I go crazy. It keeps
me sane by giving me an outlet for all these visions and characters
and stories that go whirling around in my head. I have to get them
out on paper or I start to get very irritable! I began to write, or
rather, make up stories, before some of the traumatic incidents surfaced
in my childhood. So the writing didn’t develop as a coping mechanism,
but instead, became an outlet for all those fears and anger and all
the pain I went through. I had a horrible childhood starting about
when I was about four or five years old, and I was in an abusive relationship
for the entire decade of my 20’s, so I really don’t feel
that life "began" until I hit 30. The writing helped me cope
with all of that crap, but the drive to create—to use language
to tell stories and weave tales—was there before all the pain
began.
R&T: You say you are now happier than ever – do
you find this contentment reflected in your writing?
YG: Even after my life shifted gears, and I found that I could be
happy and could have a good life and a good marriage to a wonderful
man, my drive to write had only grown stronger. In terms of contentment
and my writing—it doesn’t affect my subject matter, so
much as heighten my ability to focus.
R&T: It is said that writing is a lonely
occupation. Your thoughts?
YG: I agree. You have to have solitude in which to think and focus.
Even when other people are around, you’re off somewhere in your
own little world. If you can’t immerse yourself in your work,
then your writing will be superficial and won’t have the ring
of truth to it. I enjoy my alone time. My husband goes to work, and
I go in my office and shut the door. I work most of the day in silence,
talking only to the cats. Occasionally I pick up the phone and call
a friend or my sister when I need a break.
I have a good friend—a freelance communications specialist—who
comes over every week, and we have tea, with proper china cups and
teapot, and we talk about our work. She’s as focused on her career
as I am on mine, and we like being able to discuss the professional
aspects of competition and business and mingle it with a bit of personal
angst and laughter.
R&T: Most fictional characters are an amalgam of "real" characters
(with often more than one real-life person contributing to the traits
of a single fictional character) and "made up" traits.
What proportion of each do your characters take? And do you make
a conscious decision about this when growing your characters?
YG: Emerald and Persia are both different aspects of me, but neither
one encompasses me as a whole, and they have traits that I don’t
have. Actually, I think that most characters I write about—even
the villains—have a touch of Yasmine in them. However, the characters
also incorporate traits I see in others, as well as traits that just
come out on their own. I allow my characters to evolve naturally. I
don’t force them to do anything that they don’t want to,
and I’ll tell you, when a character refuses to do something,
it throws the whole book off until you resolve the issue. Usually I’ll
approach the problem by asking my characters “Why don’t
you want to do this?” or “What would you rather do here?” And
if I listen carefully, I’ll hear the answer.
R&T: Let's talk about plots. There are
two opposing schools of thoughts on how best to approach a novel:
outline it to the last detail, or just go with the flow. I suspect
most writers fall somewhere in between. What is your method of approaching
your plots?
YG: I’m one of those who fall in between. I have to have a
basic synopsis for my editor, since I write on proposal only. I had
a contract for the second and third Chintz ‘n China books
before I even knew what they were going to be about.
I sent my editor a three page synopsis for Legend of the Jade
Dragon. She suggested some changes, I made them, she approved,
I wrote the book. Same thing for Murder Under A Mystic Moon.
Speaking of editors—I really like my editor at Penguin. Christine
Zika is brilliant, and has helped me evolve as a writer in so many
ways. She’s able to point out flaws or areas in my plot lines
that need beefing up or altering in a subtle way, and it always makes
the book better.
For the India Ink books, she offered me the
contract on a series proposal only, but even that was shifted around.
That’s
one thing I’ve learned: in the publishing world, nothing is set
in stone until it’s in the galleys stage.
Now, for my own benefit, I will write out a brief
list of things that need to happen in each chapter before I begin writing
it. And when I get near the end of the book, I’ll outline the last three
chapters all at once. But these outlines are very limited. They're
more like bullet lists so that I don’t forget anything vital,
or lose consistency.
R&T: Do you like
to be surprised while you are writing?
YG: I’m always surprised during the writing process, because
so much comes up that I never expected. Nothing that alters the basic
idea, but something that does significantly impact the mood and nature
of the books and sets up future ideas and plot lines. That’s
the fun part—like finding buried treasure in what you at first
thought was a simple hope chest.
R&T: Visualization versus conceptualization during the
writing process – how do you proceed? In other words, do you "see" or "think" your
scenes?
YG: Hmm. Interesting question. I’d have to say both. I have
in mind what needs to happen, but then I see it play out in my head
much like a movie. And if I am having trouble visualizing how something
happens, I meditate on it and let my mind try different variations
on the same scene until I find the one that works. If nothing works,
then I know something is wrong with the basic structure of the scene,
and I go back and examine what might be off. Is it out of synch with
the rest of the book? Does it go against the grain of the character?
Is it unbelievable, given the direction in which both the book and
character have developed?
R&T: What are your main aims with respect
to your readers? What, if anything, would you like your readers to
take with them when they have finished your books?
YG: I want my readers to feel like they’ve made a good investment
with their time and money. I want to make them think, to give them
a chance to laugh, or be frightened, or to learn something new. Even
if they hate the book, it’s better than boring them. I want them
to be glad they invested a small portion of their life into the worlds
I’ve created. Because time is a far more important resource than
money.
Back when 9/11 happened, I had just really gotten going on Ghost
of a Chance, and I found myself having a lot of angst over the
fact that here I was, writing ‘entertainment’ fiction,
when the world had gone insane. Like many people, I was traumatized
by what had transpired, and it was hard to get through the day without
obsessing on how horrendous people could be, and how terrifyingly
fragile life actually is.
And then one day I sat down and read one of Janet
Evanovich’s Stephanie
Plum books. And I finished it, laughing my head off, and suddenly
it hit me: I felt better. Her book had made me breathe easier and
had given me a chance to escape and relax and just enjoy life for
a little while. And that was when I got it on a gut level—art,
entertainment, play, media, fiction, movies, all of these are vital
to our mental and emotional health. We have to have these outlets
because the world is so damned overwhelming at times that if we don’t
have a place to escape, then we go crazy. So right then and there,
I stopped feeling like I was a bad person for wanting to write something
that wasn’t dark and brooding and solemn. Our stories help
people keep their sanity in an insane world.
R&T: Discipline is paramount, especially
when you're working to a deadline. Do you ever procrastinate? If
so, what remedies work for you?
YG: When I’m working on a new book, for the first week or so
I’ll write a little, play a game of computer solitaire or backgammon,
write a bit more, answer an email, and so on. After I’m used
to the rhythm of the new book—usually within the first two weeks—I
stop playing and stick to my schedule: up and at my desk by 7:30 in
the morning, answer email and wake up. Start work on current book by
8:00. Work till noon or so. Half hour for lunch, then work until around
5:00-6:00 PM. I try to take a ten-minute break two or three times a
day, so I can stretch and walk around. I work Monday through Friday,
and usually spend a couple hours on Saturday morning catching up with
email and coordinating my calendars and schedules for the week and,
if it needs it, working on the web site.
There are a few days where I find I simply can’t work. After
sitting at my desk for two hours with nothing coming at all, I’ll
go in the living room, play with the cats, watch a little TV or go
outside for a breath of fresh air. Then I try again. If it still doesn’t
work, I take the day off. Luckily this seldom happens and when it does,
I’ve usually just finished an important section of the book,
or worked a series of extra-long days.
R&T: What about
getting blocked?
YG: As far as what most people refer to as writer’s
block—no,
I don’t get it. I never run out of ideas and if I find myself
stumbling, I just look at that deadline looming and remember that I
can get sued if I don’t turn in a manuscript on time. And I don’t
get paid unless I work. I find that on days when I’m not inspired,
the pages that I produce are almost always just as good as on the days
when inspiration is high. I suppose you might say I’ve taken
on the role of my own personal Muse. You certainly can’t rely
on luck if you want to make it as a career author. You have to create
excitement and enthusiasm. You can’t just wait for it to strike.
R&T: Tell us a little about your working
environment, what gets your creative juices flowing. And what doesn't.
YG: I hate clutter. If the house is in disarray, I can’t think
very well. I need order and am very compulsive about making sure that,
as jam-packed as my office is, everything is organized and neat. My
office is very "office-like." I work out of our home, in
one of the spare bedrooms. I’ve got this huge U-shaped desk that
I absolutely love and will only give up when I actually own my own
home and have room for oak and leather. My office is full of shelving
and filing units, a bookshelf full of writing books and my own books
that I’ve written, office supplies, you name it. If it’s
in the Office Depot catalog and can fit in my office without cluttering
it up too much, I probably own it.
An important tool for my creative process comes in
the form of three dry erase boards—two small ones, and one large one. I use them
to keep track of deadlines and to brainstorm. The largest board serves
as a catch-all board for ideas, intermediate deadlines, notes, etc..
These boards are integral to my creative process and I don’t
remember how I got along without them.
I have one very important trinket, and those who’ve
read Legend
of the Jade Dragon will recognize it: Miss Kitty. My porcelain
cat figurine I’ve had since I was seven years old. She has
a hat and a scarf and she’s my writing mascot. Whenever we
move, I pack her up very carefully, and she’s one of the first
pieces I unpack in my office. I dote on her, and she sits next to
my computer. When I destroyed Emerald’s shop in the book, I
felt so bad for her, that I gave her Miss Kitty to make her feel
better.
R&T: You live in the Pacific Northwest – do
you believe that your physical environment effects what you write
and the way you write?
YG: You know, a writer friend and I’ve discussed this a number
of times, and we’ve come to the conclusion that yes, the Pacific
Northwest spawns so many writers because of its weather and environment.
With less than sixty-five totally clear days a year, outdoor activities
cease to be all that appealing. Especially on rain-drenched days.
And don’t forget the wilderness factor. Even though I live
near Seattle, there’s a lot of wild land, so there’s still
that rugged, untamed feel to things. And we have the Pacific Ocean.
She’s beautiful and wild and fierce, and such a source of inspiration
to me. We have moss so thick you could make a bed out of it, and moss
drips from the trees in the forests, and mushrooms spring up overnight
after a rain, and mist rises during the autumn. And day after day,
for a good nine months out of the year, rain drizzles…
I’m positive that the area inspires the nature of my work.
After all, we have the legends of Sasquatch and we have the flying
saucers seen around Mount Rainier back in the late 40’s. We have
volcanoes that actually work, and an ocean, and one of the only temperate
rain forests in North America. To me, it’s a surprise there aren’t
more fantasy, mystery, and suspense writers here. We have such a rich
tapestry of environment and people, we might as well make use of the
atmosphere! As far as what I write—well, the land here is magical
and wild, and very mysterious and yes, it inspires me.
R&T: Do you have something you'd like
to share with our audience of readers and writers?
YG: Writing is harder work than you ever imagine it to be. I get
ticked when every doctor, lawyer, gardener, shopkeeper, and waitress
comes up to me and says, “I’d like to write a book. Someday,
when I’ve got a little spare time, I’ll sit down and do
it.” I’d like to snap back with, “Yeah, I’d
like to perform an appendectomy. Someday, when I’ve got some
spare time, I’ll drop into the hospital and give it a go.” I
want to shout, “Have a little respect for the effort I put into
my work!”
Writing takes talent, first and foremost. If you don’t have
the talent for it, then you’re not going to be able to write
a book. Just like some people have a talent for medicine, some for
cooking, some for athletics—it takes a certain type of talent
to work with the written language.
And writing takes self-discipline and a lot of hard
work. If you are serious about wanting to enter a career as a writer,
then prepare yourself for years of rejections and years of work until
you break in. I got my first acceptance when I was fifteen: a small
college magazine accepted a poem of mine, and I got one contributor’s copy. My
first book contract didn’t arrive until 1996, when I was thirty-five.
That’s a twenty-year span. There are studies out indicating that
from the time you seriously start focusing on your art—be it
painting, writing, music—it will take eight to ten years until
you break through on a professional level. If you can’t develop
a thick skin and a professional attitude about the rejections, etc.,
long before then, you’ll never make it. It’s called “paying
your dues,” and it’s a part of every profession.
R&: What does the writing life mean to
you?
YG: I am a writer. Therefore I write. I am a career writer; therefore
I must publish in order to see my career grow. I get my work done.
I meet my deadlines, I am professional with my publishers, editors,
my agent, and the booksellers. I appreciate my readers. When I can,
I answer their letters, because readers enable me to do what I love
for a living, and I love them for buying my books.
On a broader scale, being a writer and living the
writing life means paying attention to the world around me. A writer
has to be aware of what’s going on in his or her environment. I constantly watch
people, I listen to conversations at the next table when I’m
out eating, I am always thinking, “What’s that person’s
story? What if they are…(a bank robber, a murderer, an alien…fill
in the blank)?” I see a personalized license plate that reads “Hunter” and
I speculate on a possible story idea built around that. Living the
writer’s life means I’m never "done" or never "off." Even
when I’m watching the most mindless drivel on television, I’m
still working with some part of my thoughts.
And on an ethical, moral level, being a writer means
that I have a responsibility to my readers. Even in my fiction, I won’t
take the easy way out. You can cheat if you write fiction. A novelist
cheats when the character suddenly gets out of trouble too easy, or
when the heroine does something so out of character that the reader
feels confused, or worse, cheated.
Some readers won’t like my books, and I don’t expect
everybody to. But I don’t want my readers who do love and know
my books to pick up one of them and suddenly ask, “What happened?
This isn’t up to her usual standards.” I don’t want
my readers to feel like I cheated them.
R&T: How long did it take to get your
first novel accepted for publication? Do you, like many writers,
have unpublished novels languishing in your drawer?
YG: Well, I wrote seven novels and shoved them in the closet when
they didn’t sell. Then I wrote eight nonfiction books that sold.
Then I wrote Ghost of a Chance. The first agent I sent it
to is a friend of mine, and he line-edited it for me. He tore it apart
and helped me learn what I did wrong. This was the first time I’d
written a mystery, you see, and though I’d read numerous mysteries,
I had no idea how to pace one. So I revised it.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine offered to introduce me
to her agent. So I sent a query letter to Meredith Bernstein and she
wrote back in less than a week asking for the first 100 pages. A week
later I got a call that she wanted to represent me. Less than two weeks
later, I had an offer for a three-book contract, and the rest is history.
But understand, I have a drawer filled with hundreds of rejections
from agents and publishers on my other novels, so I’ve been down
that route many times without success.
R&T: How did it feel when you were offered
a contract for a series?
YG: I screamed in my agent’s ear. I’m not kidding. She
called at 8 AM on a Monday morning and said, “We’ve got
an offer for a three-book contract from Penguin.” I started screaming “Yes!
Yes! Yes!” and she laughed. I ran to wake up my husband, and
then I called everybody I knew who would be up at that time. And then
I broke into a cold sweat because I realized I had to come up with
two more books that the publisher would like—and I had to write
them to a deadline.
I do have to say that my first book contract (for Trancing
The Witch’s Wheel) will always be the most memorable, precisely
because it was the first. It was the culmination of a lifetime of
hopes and dreams and hard work. But this murder mystery series contract
was a step into a whole new world.
R&T: Any regrets, anything you would have
done differently along the way?
YG: Not many. Of course, I wish my career would have taken off sooner,
but I studied the markets, I studied the business, and I did the best
with what I had to work with at the time. I think my one big change
would be that I’d spend more time writing in my early twenties.
I’d also listen to criticism from professionals more willingly,
because a hard lesson I learned is that our words are not sacred, and
they are not set in stone. There’s always room for improvement.
And I wouldn’t have set an impossible time table in my head.
I really expected to be on the NYT bestseller list by the time I was
28.
R&T: Are you planning more non-fiction
books in the future?
YG: I would like eventually to write a book on the psychology of
writing, and I’d love to write a series of books on the mythology
of various natural elements—volcanoes, lakes, forests, streams.
I’ve also got a hankering to write a book on hauntings in western
Washington. But for now, I want to focus on my fiction. Keeping and
building the momentum of the Chintz ‘n China series.
Building the India Ink series. Writing some stand-alone novels.
R&T: And one last question, who is your
favourite Harry Potter character, and why?
YG: Oh you are not going to believe this, and I’m almost embarrassed
to admit it, but I haven’t yet read the Harry Potter series!
I simply haven’t had time. I own the books, but they’re
on my huge to-read pile. I tend to read more in my genre.
How about my favorite Lord of the Rings character instead?
That would be Strider/Aragorn. I love his rough and tumble nature and
yet, beneath the dirt and the torn clothing, there beats the heart
of a king. He is honor incarnate, he is regal and yet walks in all
paths comfortably. I believe that every leader should have to live
in the wilds for a time, in poverty, to understand the life that many
of his subjects have to live.
YASMINE GALENORN LINKS
Website
Books may be found at
Penguin/Berkley, Amazon,
and Barnes
& Noble
