Places in my writing life: Part 1

Paul McCartney sings about places in his song In My Life:

There are places I'll remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone, and some remain

And so it is with all of us. I think this chimes with writers, especially those of us who are fascinated by history. I write crime, some contemporary and some – The Tudor Enigma series – set in an alternate Tudor history with a bit of magic thrown in.

When I was younger (so much younger than today), I lived in Worcester, another city chock full of history. I have stood where Charles II stood, high up on the Cathedral roof, as he watched Cromwell’s forces overwhelm his army. I can show you the place where he escaped by climbing out of a window and over the walls of the city.

In the Cathedral itself, the tomb of Henry VIII’s elder brother, Arthur is situated, as is the tomb of an early Plantagenet, King John, himself an interesting character. I have a theory he would today have been diagnosed as bi-polar.

The place that holds my heart will always be Worcester Cathedral. In 1978 in the middle of a Three Choirs concert, the first inkling of the book that would become Dearly Ransomed Soul popped into my head.

In Worcester, we are talking serious Elgar territory. The opening concert was Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius conducted by Sir Charles Groves. He looked just like a jolly Father Christmas but he had a tongue that could strip wallpaper if any of the musicians fell below his standards. Since we were in Worcester, any choir singer on that platform was supposed to have taken this oratorio in with their mother’s milk. I had just come from the wilds of Norfolk! This concert was where I learned to sight-sing very accurately through sheer terror.

The part of the Angel was sung by Sandra Browne and I sat transfixed. But even then, the writer in me was alive to crime story possibilities. What if the Angel, having sung her socks off, was murdered immediately after the concert? The finished book came out in 2008 – yes 30 years after the initial idea - published by Legend Press. Although the characters went through several incarnations and I called Worcester, Temingham, the title never changed from Dearly Ransomed Soul. Since then, I have always chosen musical titles for the Georgia Pattison Mysteries and included links at the end of each book to music mentioned in the text

.

I rewrote it a few years later and published it digitally. The second incarnation had a different killer and was set in Worcester. I was much happier with this new version and Georgia Pattison, my early-music soprano was born. Her second full-length adventure is Laid in Earth, also set in and around Worcester.

When I saw the trend for publishing Christmas novellas, I thought Georgia Pattison was ideal for the purpose. I decided she needed an introductory novella, which I set in Whitby and concerned the murder of a young woman Georgia used to babysit. As with all the Georgia Pattison books, the title had to have a music connection but also fit the theme of the book. I decided on Whistles After Dark from Kipling’s Smugglers Song. Being a “first” book, it was not set at Christmas, but there have been several since then that focus on the festive season. Not all have been set in Worcester, but all have had a solid foundation in their geographical place.


You can find April Taylor on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/britwriterapriltaylor
and Twitter: https://twitter.com/authAprilTaylor