When I was growing up I was too busy climbing trees to read, but then someone gave me a bound collection of Agatha Christie stories and life changed. So it was inevitable that I would watch the recent television program about her life. One aspect of her life left me pondering about the life of all future creative ideas.
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Thanks to Dvortygirl
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For years after her death in 1976 at 85, there have been discussions about how the top selling author came up with her ideas. Just how did Hercule Poirot come to be? Was she a disciplined thinker with a photographic memory, or a wildly random creative creature to the core?
How fascinating then that, after the passing of her daughter, the estate uncovered 73 private notebooks. Can you imagine being the person who found them? To hold the books in your hand and open the dusty, warn, covers for the first time. It’d be like Willie Wonkers Chocolate Factory … minus the calories.
Evidently the notebooks showed that Ms Christie’s mind was constantly coming up with ideas. They were filled with illustrations, deleted extracts, alternative plotlines, and two unpublished Poirot stories.
The discovery reminded me of a time when a brilliantly creative friend of mine had an idea stolen right out from under him. His response was …
‘No drama, another one will come along soon.’
Oh to have such a mind brimming with ideas all fighting to be heard.
The emergence of the notebooks also had me pondering about how creative ideas will be retrieved in the future.
Perhaps like me, you’ve relinquished pen and paper in favour of the more convenient mobile phone. It’s all too easy to click on the Notes app, open a new page and tap down an idea, something I do on a daily basis. But I’m left pondering what that means for the future …
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No more multi-coloured scribbles, using red to emphasise the point;
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No more tea stained parchment;
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No yellowing corners;
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No smudges or insights into what was had for dinner while the creation evolved.
In years to come someone will unearth a small, black, insignificant looking sim card. On it the outline of The Hunger Games, the plot of Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey … actually in the case of the later perhaps it’s a good thing not be privy to the accompanying doodles.
Long live the artists’ notebook I say!
For Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks go to …
