Washing The Dishes For Creativity.....

I was extremely pleased to find this in my letterbox when I got home today...

Much as I love to promote buying books from independent Melbourne bookstores, it would be a lie if I said I didn't also make a fair few online purchases. AbeBooks is an excellent source of hit for anyone's bookish addictions. There are millions of bargains out there for you to collect, and whilst one can never replicate the joys of fossicking through a real-world bookstore, there's also a wonderful buzz to coming home to a little gem sitting in your letterbox!


I have to quote the Author's Foreword here, a lovely little insight into the mind of one of the twentieth centuries most prolific crime writers....

Poirot's Christian name made the writing of this series of short stories quiet irresistible. I started on it in a fine frenzy of enthusiasm - damped down in a short while by the unforeseen difficulties. Some stories wrote themselves - The Nemean Lion, for instance and The Lernean Hydra. The Cretan Bull, too, worked out in the most natural manner. But some of the Labours were a real challenge to ingenuity. The Erymanthian Boar defeated me for a long time - so did The Girdle of Hippolyta. Over the final Capture of Cerberus I gave way completely to despair. I could not think of a suitable exposition of the title. The whole thing had, indeed, to be put away for six months. And then, suddenly, one day, coming up the escalator of the Tube, the idea came. Thinking excitedly about it, I went up and down on the escalator about eight times and was nearly run over by a bus on the way home! The really safe and satisfactory place to work out a story is when you are washing up. The purely mechanical labour helps the flow of ideas and how delightful to find your domestic task finished with no actual remembrance of having done it! I strongly recommend domestic routine for all those engaged in creative thinking. This does not include cooking, for cooking is itself creative - and actually much more fun than writing but alas, not so well paid.

AGATHA CHRISTIE

I can hear the sound of all those with a desire to be considered a classicist diving for Wikipedia to look up those titles already....Who could have known what a loss the invention of the dishwasher was to be to the literary world?