Happy February! I started this series of Agatha Christie quotes with the intention of sharing one on the first Wednesday of each month. However, the world keeps imploding on the first Wednesday of each month—election results, insurrections. And out of respect, I have been skipping those days. But thankfully, the world seems stable today (fingers crossed!), so I’m back to it!
Agatha Said:
“The trouble is that it is awfully hard for an author to put things in words when you have to do it in the course of conversation. You can do it with a pencil in your hand, or sitting in front of your typewriter — then the thing comes out already formed as it should come out — but you can’t describe things that you are only going to write; or at least I can’t. I learnt in the end never to say anything about a book before it was written. Criticism after you have written it is helpful. You can argue the point, or you can give in, but at least you know how it has struck one reader. Your own description of what you are going to write, however, sounds so futile, that to be told kindly that it won’t do meets with your instant agreement.”
It’s the first Wednesday of December, so it’s time for an Agatha Day! (You’ll notice I skipped November. We all needed a little break in November, given *gestures to the state of the country last month*.) This month’s quote highlights a feeling I think every creative person knows well.
Agatha Said:
“It is an odd feeling to have a book growing inside you, for perhaps six or seven years knowing that one day you will write it, knowing that it is building up all the time to what it already is. Yes, it is there already — it just has to come more clearly out of the mist. All the people are there, ready, waiting in the wings, ready to come on to the stage when their cues are called — and then, suddenly, one gets a clear and sudden command: Now!
“Now is when you are ready. Now, you know all about it. Oh, the blessing that for once one is able to do it then and there, that now is really now.”
It’s time for another Agatha Day! Usually this day falls on the first Wednesday of the month, but I pushed it a day due to the Vice Presidential debate. (On that note, please vote. I’m sure you’ve been seeing that reminder everywhere, but it’s so important. You have a voice. Don’t let anyone muffle it.)
In other news, the weather here in VA has turned beautifully crisp and I’m loving it. And while I love to write in every season, fall is my absolute favorite and seems to stir up extra creativity in me. While spring might be the season that represents new beginnings to most people, for me, it’s fall. And so today I’m sharing a quote that represents the beginning of something incredible for our dear Agatha Christie.
Agatha Said:
“Fired with all this [discussion of detective stories], I said I should like to try my hand at a detective story.
“‘I don’t think you could do it,’ said Madge. ‘They are very difficult to do. I’ve thought about it.’
“‘I should like to try.’
“‘Well, I bet you couldn’t,’ said Madge.
“There the matter rested. It was never a definite bet; we never set out terms — but the words had been said. From that moment I was fired by the determination that I would write a detective story. It didn’t go further than that. I didn’t start to write it then, or plan it out; the seed had been sown. At the back of my mind, where the stories of the books I am going to write take their place long before the germination of the seed occurs, the idea had been planted: some day I would write a detective story.“