Interview with Crime Writer Catherine Rymsha – S. 10, Ep. 7

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Catherine Rymsha.

Check out our discussion about leadership skills and crime fiction writing.

You can download a PDF of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has a career in workplace communication and management. She teaches leadership skills and has a nonfiction book called The Leadership Decision which she published before her crime novel. Her crime novel is Stunning. It’s called Stunning, and in addition, she has given a TED Talk on the importance of listening, so listen up. You might learn something. It’s my great pleasure to have with me today, Catherine Rymsha. I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly.

Catherine: You are. Thank you. Yes, you are.

Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful.

Catherine: So happy to be here.

Debbi: I was going to ask you about that, and I’d completely forgotten, in the big hubbub of trying to get connected.

Catherine: That’s fine.

Debbi: You wouldn’t believe, people. Anyway, thank you so much for being here. What is it that made you decide to write a novel, and a mystery at that?

Catherine: I love murders.

Debbi: Who doesn’t?

Catherine: It’s so odd saying that, but I’m talking to an audience who understands that. I love crime, I love murder. Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to write and I fell into leadership and wrote a ton about leadership, which for some, that’s not the most thrilling topic in the world, which I understand totally. But then, I was pregnant when I wrote Stunning. It was a dream. It was based on a dream that I had, and I kept having the dream, and I thought maybe I should write this down and I just started writing. I would write before bed and just write, write, write when I had time and I wasn’t sleeping or working a real job, and that’s how it came about. It just felt like it needed to get out of my brain.

Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it.

Debbi: Interesting. So do you picture writing more books, or is this like your one shot ?

Catherine: I just came out with a textbook, also not as thrilling, very academic, but I want to get back into writing murder and crime and even if I could do something based on real life murder or crime. I think those are things that are interesting to me to explore next. But I do want to start getting into it and I keep saying that, and I thought all summer I’ll write another book. And now summer has come and gone and the book is not written. So I’m thinking, well, maybe in the fall. I say that and I laugh because I don’t know if it’s going to happen that quickly, but it’s more fun than writing leadership. I mean, leadership is important but crime and murder and making things up is way more fun.

Debbi: Making things up is fun.

Catherine: Yes.

Debbi: It’s its own form of work, but at the same time it’s fun work.

Catherine: It is fun work.

Debbi: Yeah. Your books – do you have a traditional, hybrid or are you self-published?

Catherine: I am self-published with my first two, but the textbook, I did work with a publishing company, so that was interesting too, to have that experience after doing two on my own and working with editors and beta readers and that whole spiel.

Debbi: The whole shebang, yes.

Catherine: The whole team.

Debbi: I was going to ask you about your publishing journey. What has it been like for you? Has it been what you expected?

Catherine: With the first one, it was a learning curve, because I wanted to find an editor and I found an excellent editor named Sandy. She was so great at walking me through the entire process because she’s very experienced and does a lot of writing herself and writes books for authors trying to get published for the first time, and she is just brilliant at everything she does. So with having her, that was amazing. I can’t quite remember how I found her. I think I just found her through an online platform or a Google search or something, but she was a huge help. So even though I found it a little overwhelming at times and expensive at times, she really made it feel worth it. And then with the second book, it felt like a breeze because I knew what to expect and it just went a lot quicker.

But I would say there’s so many tools out there, as you know, for authors to use and to benefit from and to get their work out there that it’s no longer … I can look back now and think it’s not as bad as what I thought it was going to be. It can be expensive and you sell books but I haven’t kind of broken even with it yet. So that’s been interesting too.

I would say there’s so many tools out there, as you know, for authors to use and to benefit from and to get their work out there that it’s no longer … I can look back now and think it’s not as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

Debbi: It does add up. Everything out there does add up. It’s incredible. So what is your writing schedule like then?

Catherine: I write at night. I have two twin boys who are two now. Like I said, I was pregnant with them when I was writing the book and publishing it. But now it’s trying to fit it in when I can. So whether it’s before bed, between classes at UMass or early in the morning if I wake up before my kids, then those are the times that I try to fit it in. I wish I had more time, which I know everybody says, to write, but I think it’s just that matter of discipline, committing to a schedule.

Debbi: It’s a matter of discipline. Yes, very much so. It sounds like you have a plan that involves catching time periods where you can, how you can pretty much.

Catherine: Yes. I was listening to another one of your podcasts about writing in the airport and even just having that pen and paper, and I think that’s the thing. I take voice memos and then I take a screenshot of what the voice memo picked up, because if I don’t remember this thought or idea, I’m going to lose it. I don’t often have pencils and paper around these days.

I take voice memos and then I take a screenshot of what the voice memo picked up, because if I don’t remember this thought or idea, I’m going to lose it. I don’t often have pencils and paper around these days.

Debbi: Yes. That’s true. I’ve done that myself actually. I find all sorts of things I wrote years ago that I forgot about. It’s interesting. What authors have most inspired you to write in this genre?

Catherine: I think it’s going back to that R.L. Stein starting as a kid. I think those Fear Street books, Goosebumps books really caught my attention. Also then in high school, I started reading Stephen King, as most high schoolers start to do. I shouldn’t say most high schoolers. I think at the time a lot of my colleagues and peers and friends were. I don’t know if Stephen King is as popular now with the younger demographic, although I want to make sure. I assume he is, but I think folks like that who were pretty mainstream and out there and being published and seen as real authors were the ones that got me kind of hungry to write, and now many years later, writing in this particular genre.

Debbi: Yes. I have to read those Goosebumps books sometime because I keep hearing about them. It’s a period that I didn’t because I didn’t have kids so there are all these children’s books that sound so intriguing to me that I don’t know about.

Catherine: I look back and I think – I didn’t mean to interrupt you – but I’m like, oh my gosh, I was reading some of this at 12, 13. 10 I think I started with some of these books, and they got their hooks in me, I guess.

Debbi: I think they can be equally entertaining for adults.

Catherine: Oh, totally.

Debbi: I like that. I love stuff like that, just to go off and read a middle grade or a child’s book or a teenage, a young adult just for something different, to get away from the adults for a while.

Catherine: Oh, a hundred percent. Gives you a new perspective.

Debbi: Yes. Your book is set in New England, correct? Which is where you are.

Catherine: Yes. I’m in Massachusetts in the greater Newburyport area, so if you’re looking at a map, right on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts line, and my book kind of bounces around with perspective. So it’s thinking about some activities happening years ago in Boston or even at Amherst, and some events happening here in Newburyport, and then some bouncing up to Mount Katahdin in Maine, and really just having some fun with playing around with locations and perspective and time. That’s where I tried to wea