Travel was no easy matter

 Friday Night Murder came out in July 2024. My first venture into the crime scene. I think it fits under the label of police procedural since it features Jess Carter leaving the Met and moving north to Hexham as Detective Inspector. On her very first day it snows, she's late for work and hears someone make a disparaging remark about a new Inspector who leaves the top force in the country  - what is wrong with her? Oh, and a dead body of a young girl is found in the snow....

Writing it was fun and the change of scene interesting. Research involved all sorts of investigations into signs of death, post mortems, weapons, all of which should puzzle anyone who ever checks the files on my computer. Also quite different to my usual research into fabrics and styles of the Regency, not to mention hair styles, types of carriages and distances between towns and cities and travelling between them. Travel was no easy matter in 1811 and I can see why most folk stayed at home all their lives.

I am now in the throes of final editing of Saturday Morning Murder which also features Jess Carter and Rory Harrison. Maybe it will be published on KDP by the end of February 25. I certainly hope so. I'm ready to move onto something else. Will there be a Sunday Night Murder? Possibly. It seems a shame to leave all that research unused! 

Hexham as a crime scene

 

Is atmosphere of place important in crime writing?

I’ve just finished the latest Rebus and I wonder if I’m the only one who checks the locations on my ipad as I read? I used to know Edinburgh fairly well. As a young person I linked the city to Mary Queen of Scots and thought it terribly romantic. A cousin of mine, only a few years older, remarked dourly that it was a grim, dirty city. A friend who trained as a town planner did his work experience in Edinburgh and took me to see some of the desperate council estates that tourist rarely see.

If you read Ian Rankin’s books, and I own most of them, then Edinburgh is revealed in splendid misery. The town itself seems to breed the crimes that go on inside its buildings and has done for centuries. The history reeks of witchcraft, murder, grave robbers, back stabbers and their stories seem to rise out of the sooty stones of the city.

So yes, I think place is important and I’m wondering if Hexham is appropriate as a setting for murder. Has there ever been a murder in Hexham? It seems there has. Records of murder in the twelfth century, and more through the ages right up until Holly Newton died in January this year. I doubt there’s anything I can do will to make the pretty little market town of Hexham seem as grim as Edinburgh. There are ancient buildings, such as the Old Gaol, built in 1333 from stones taken from the Roman site at Corbridge. Surely those stones have memories? Maybe they can be made to give them up...

Writing

Now that the month of novel writing is over I hope there will be more activity on the internet. NaNoWriMo, as it is fondly known by those who participate, takes over the month of November.  The aim is to write a 50k story in that month, and of course it means dropping everything else in favour of writing.

I don't take part, and so I notice how Blog posts drop off, comments are few, people disappear from Twitter and Facebook, critique groups don't move very much during the month. It demonstrates how much writers inhabit these places, or, put another way, how many people out there want to write a story even in these days when book publishing is supposedly in recession.

One answer to avoid the slow down would be to cultivate people who are not likely to launch themselves into NaNoWriMo, but how do you know? The most unexpected people turn out to have ambitions to write a book...some day. I attended a Girls' Night In at Hexham Library last night as a panel member, and was pleased to see so many people turn out on a freezing cold night, some travelling lonely country roads from villages in the Pennines where snow covered the ground. We told them how we'd begun to write, how we wrote, what we wrote etc etc. and they asked if our stories were ever altered by publishers, did we have any input on covers, how did it feel if stories or titles were altered? I suspect we had some budding authors right there in the audience.

For me it began years ago, back in the days of typewriters and Sno-pak, and it was tediously slow. I fiddled about in between real life and never finished anything, but then three things happened in the early nineties: computers came in at work, and I had to learn how to use them. I saw the possibilities and got a computer at home, and writing moved up a gear. Then I retired, and a whole new chapter of life began. First book finally completed, offered and accepted. I was hooked.

Green grass and Hexham

We're back to normal English winter weather.
The snow has just about gone, and the river
is no longer frozen but is running high and thick
and brown. The temperature is 4 degrees C,
damp and still. We went to Northacomb Farm Shop today, which sits high up on the ridge above the river. The snow was just starting to fall last week and the fields were still white from the previous dump. The pond was frozen, and everything glazed with frost.

Today, the snow has gone and the green fields are back on show. Not as bright and lush as they are in summer, but green nevertheless. Muddy and wet where the animals trudge about near gates and drinking troughs, and no doubt skiddy if you try and walk over them. In other fields, winter wheat is shooting, brave spears pale and green above the cold brown soil.

Its always reassuring to see the green when the snow melts. As if all is right with the world, somehow. One or two plants get frosted and die, but on the whole everything copes remarkably well with the cold and snow. Misty weather may not be particularly nice for being outdoors, but it makes for wonderfully atmospheric photographs. You cannot see Hexham in this shot below, but it is there, I assure you, lurking in the valley behind the two trees. We encountered a massive two lane traffic jam about half a mile from the roundabout into Hexham, and it took us an age to creep up the hill and turn down again towards the bridge over the Tyne and into Tesco beyond.
We thought the world had gone mad and couldn't wait to rush into the supermarkets to stock up because the shops would be closed for uh, maybe a whole day. As if, with freezers and fridges at our disposal, we cannot manage to last two days without new stocks. Anyway, we crawled down to the bridge where we found temporary traffic lights set up.
And all because two paving stones on the footpath had been lifted and removed. No workmen present, no explanation; red and white barriers around the area, managing to take up half of one lane of the road as well as the pavement, and therefore requiring only one lane across the bridge to be in use. No wonder there was a traffic jam. Hexham was in chaos, with half the town jammed solid and the other half like a ghost town.
We grumbled to ourselves in the car as we whizzed on into Tesco. Which lunatic in the town council had ordered the work to start at this precise time, and then allowed the workmen to leave the job half done while they disappeared home and put their feet up? Whoever s/he may be, may you too get stuck - not once, but several times - in your own creation.

Too busy!

Too much, I cry; too much! There's fabulous weather

begging me to go for walks, my garden to enjoy, people to see, Wimbledon (and if you are of the football persuasion, World Cup) to watch.

I signed a contract last week with Sapphire Blue publishing for my book Shadows, so e-mails are whizzing back and forth on that topic. Shadows has changed since it's brief exposure with the now defunct Triskelion. I've rewritten it from beginning to end and added 20,000 to improve the characterisation and motivation of the story. It's definitely a much better book than it was.

At the same time I'm making new contacts through the electronic world, receiving reviews for my last book and joining new blog groups. If you haven't discovered it yet, do have a peek at Historical Belles and Beaus. (The longer I look at that last word, the more I am tempted to write it as Beaux. And if you hurry, my post on Anne Boleyn is the most recent).

As for my poor old wip, editing has stalled at around Chapter 16.

This is the third day in a row that I've not got to it and I'm feeling so guilty. I also know that I have only a certain number of days before I go on holiday and I'd hoped to have it finished before then so that I could settle down and write - ha! ha! - wait for it! a romance for the Mills & Boon competition that kicks off around September.

Mills and Boon and I do not gell. I am continually told in rejection letters that (though my writing is fine etc) I don't have enough internal conflict.

I think because my Matho story is at an end (except for the editing, which OK, demands a lot of layering and thought) my subconcious is sort of freewheeling, if I can put it like that. It noted the M&B competition, and has been offering me tantalising bits of plot that I could use if I was willing to put in the time and energy - and if I think I have a better understanding of what they want when they talk about internal conflict. To be frank, initially I used to think of it as whingeing. Heroine wrings hands and wonders what to do in difficult situation. Now I have learned it is far more than that, and I think I could actually manage it now. It also seemed an ideal new venture to think about while I'm relaxing in France.

The pic shows Hexham market place on a brilliant sunny day. The close up is one of the more intriguing memorials around Hexham. No explanation. But why would someone go to the expense of having a memorial stone carved that says only Blood and Fire?

Must go - the Queen is arriving at Wimbledon! Must watch!