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Claire Ladds

Crime and suspense author

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Agatha Christie

What a writer needs (according to Agatha Christie – and me!)

3rd September 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

I gave my new Agatha Christie bag a bit of an outing yesterday. As it was its first trip out, officially (I don’t really count the trip home from Waterstones Piccadilly on the train because it was stuffed in a suitcase), I wanted to make it a bit special. So the bag and I went to Lidl to do my weekly shopping. In case you didn’t know, the author life is exceedingly glamorous. Mine is especially so, as I don’t own a car and therefore the bag and I had the glorious task of lugging all the shopping home on foot. My feet, not the bag’s feet, unfortunately. I did discover that my new friend, ‘Christie bag’, was particularly good as a conveyor of rice cakes and crisps, though.

When I first saw said bag, hanging there near the till in Waterstones Piccadilly, I was struck by two things: one, that it’s got exactly the same design on it as the mug my kids bought me for Christmas, and two, that Agatha Christie had the needs of writers the world over written there in a nutshell. The quote on the bag reads, ‘All you need is a chair and a table and a typewriter and a bit of peace’.

For me, that’s a quote which requires some serious thinking about, because it’s that easy and that hard. Some decent story ideas certainly don’t go amiss, neither does a brain that absorbs people and bits of the world like a sponge, puts them through the literary meat grinder and spits them out as hero(in)es and villains, and little gems of history or conversation and the like. In essence, however, the Queen of Crime has it in the bag (so to speak – or on the bag, anyway). All those things are true. I think that, if you then want to go on and publish your work, there are a whole other set of necessities that the world of writing entails, but without the important part – the writing – those things become completely unnecessary. You can’t publish something that’s not written. You can’t even read it as a bedtime story to your kids, grandkids, snoring partner or to yourself. You can’t even leave it festering on your hard drive for a decade or more. Which I’ve done. Several times.

Writing the actual words is something that has thrilled me from the day I was first able to string a sentence together on paper with a stubby pencil. It continues to enthral me, and I hope it does so until I take my last breath. But the actual practicalities of writing have not always been so easy for me. Since I began taking my writing seriously in 2007, I truly can’t say it’s been because I had to try and carve out time in between going to work and getting my ‘workplace’ job done, and only writing in my spare time, because that hasn’t been the case. I have been (and still am) a stay-at-home mum, in as much as everything I have done, job-wise and family-wise, has involved me working from home. I have, in my time, sold children’s books, made and sold handmade cards, been an editor, written online teaching resources, been a reviews editor, freelance writer, and pestered magazines until they probably just got so sick of me submitting stories that they gave in and published them, to name but a few. (Note: this is not advice to novice short story writers on story submission! In truth, I had a better plan!).

But being someone who works at home and has also taken the predominant role in cooking, cleaning, washing, looking after and fetching and carrying kids (or making them walk to their various clubs and school and the like, having not driven a car since the late 1990s – long story), and so on, this has often meant my writing needs have been pushed aside, squeezed in between other domestic jobs, or abandoned. Finding that sweet spot between knowing the hidey-hole of every once missing but now sparklingly clean sock and not knowing whether anyone in the home has eaten for a week hasn’t always been easy. There have been many times I would have loved a train commute to work, or even a bus ride, so I could get out my laptop, phone, notepad – anything – and write, but walking the kids to school didn’t quite have the same writerly effect! I tried writing in the playground while waiting for the end of school, but I got some very strange looks and I felt too guilty at ignoring the other parents that I gave that up as a bad job.

In my time, I’ve written in all sorts of places – sitting in front of the telly, kneeling at the side of the bed, in the garden, in the bathroom, in the garage. I’ve taken trips to the park and written in the passenger seat of the car. I have a pretty big desk because I thought a number of years ago that it wold be amazing to have such a luxury, but I more often than not have found myself writing at the kitchen worktop because I’ve really struggled to enjoy said desk, and because, more often than not, it has been in a different room (and even on a different floor level) to the one I have needed to be in. I have developed some kind of uneasy mastery over cooking dinner and writing at the same time! In my current home, my desk is only about ten feet from the cooker, and the washing machine – and thankfully, the kettle and the chocolate biscuits – so I am forcing myself more and more to actually sit at the gigantic thing and type there, because it means I can then use the big monitor. But I do change it up a bit. I doubt I’ll ever be truly comfortable with a ‘designated’ place to write.

That ‘bit of peace’, too, has spent the best part of two decades eluding this writer. I wrote really well during the snatched hours I had when my kids were very small and went to playgroup a couple of times a week. In fact, that was the time I was most productive with short stories, and managed to write and get certain unsuspecting magazines to publish quite a decent number of them, both in the UK and much further afield. But, as things do with families, that all changed as they got older. I had longer on my own, so you’d think my productivity would have gone through the roof. Well… no. I did lots of work, yes, but none of it was the crime, mystery and suspense writing I am currently doing, and which I’ve always wanted to do. (I’m a wannabe Agatha Christie!)

So, all I needed, of course (I told myself), was to change things up and find a better way of working. After all, any surface would do as a table, and anywhere I could park my bum would do as a seat. I had my laptop. I was just seeking that elusive last part. Several years ago, I tried a routine of going to the library and sitting at the table in there for a few hours, but my library is like Piccadilly Circus and I longed for a librarian to say ‘sh’ – and that was just to the other librarians! I had another brilliant idea of going to a cafe. I chose an amazing one. It was run by a woman who baked the most incredible scones and, when I arrived, they were always just coming out of the oven. This lovely lady became curious about what I was doing there two or three times a week, and she asked me outright – ‘Are you a writer?’ She was thrilled when I told her I was, and I sensed her watching me as I worked, which quite amused me. It was a great arrangement, except for two things: one, that she closed down, and two, that I’m surprised I didn’t roll out of the door, considering the number of jam and cream scones I ate in my time there.

I still love working in cafes. I would very much like to live near a cafe that has writer subscriptions – a favourite table booked in advance, as much tea/coffee as I can drink for one set ‘just for writers’ price, and every piece of their advertising promo stating, ‘Claire Ladds – you know, the world famous writer – writes her books here’. Okay, that last one is pushing it a bit (as is the rest, probably), but I’d love it! I get loads of work done when I’m sitting in the vicinity of people whose conversation I only hear in murmurs and who actually don’t want me to talk to them while I’m writing! That makes me sound like a really miserable so-and-so, but I’m not. I doubt there are many writers who can actually get words down while being talked to (or at!), and being expected to answer.

So, I do think Agatha Christie absolutely nailed it. A ‘bit of peace’ can come in many shapes and sizes. It might be sitting in a room in silence (even if that room turns out to be in the bathroom), or in a cafe, on a train or at a park bench surrounded by ambient noise, or whatever works. It doesn’t really matter, just as long as it does the job (preferably without turning you into a jam and cream scone). For me, my latest – and as of right now, my ‘bit of peace’ that gets the words down – is to write at my desk (or the kitchen worktop if I’m sick of sitting there) and writing to the sound of rain for 35 minutes, then having ten minutes off. It’s working better than anything I’ve ever tried before, so I’ll be sticking to it until it stops working. I love rain (which is a good job, living in England!) and so I’m hoping that all I need is my version of ‘a table and a chair and a typewriter and a bit of peace’. And that will do very nicely to get my books written. 😊

~

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: #authorlife, Agatha Christie, author quote, being a writer, working from home, writer life

Read Christie 2021: my March book choice – Death in the Clouds

29th March 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

I am back once more with my #ReadChristie2021 challenge choice, this time for March. This one was under threat all month due to my fingers being slavishly glued to the keyboard in an attempt to complete the first draft of my next book by the end of the month. Somehow, though, I’ve managed to squeeze in my reading through some matchstick-propping of eyelids. 🙂

The remit for this month was a book containing a society figure. The recommended read was Lord Edgware Dies, but I chose to read a story that I haven’t read since I was about fourteen. I picked Death in the Clouds, partly to see how much of the original story I remembered, and partly to see how it differed from the film version starring David Suchet as Poirot.

#ReadChristie2021 my March read

The setup for the story is as follows: After a visit to France, Poirot and others, some who have been to watch the tennis, some who had other reasons to be there, head to England on a plane. Poirot is among a small group of passengers in the first class compartment but, as he hates flying, he wraps himself up and tries to block out the trip altogether. As they approach the end of the flight, one of the stewards discovers one of the passengers is dead. At first glance, it appears she has been stung by a wasp, but on closer examination, it’s blatantly clear that a poisoned dart has stabbed her in the neck and a blowpipe is discovered in the back of one of the chairs, right near where Poirot had been sitting. And poor Poirot isn’t trusted, then, by most of his fellow passengers or by certain members of the authorities.

It turns out that the dead woman is a notorious money-lender, publicly known as Madame Giselle, and who targeted people with secrets which she could hold over them in order to ensure repayment of their loans. One of the passengers in that first-class compartment must have killed her somehow, even though it seems impossible that anyone could have blown a dart at the woman without being seen. But someone did, and there are a number of distinctly likely candidates. Poirot is determined to help Inspector Japp solve the case – if only to reclaim his respectability!

The trail leads them back to France to discover the secrets of Madame Giselle – including any information they can find out about the secret daughter who inherits everything. Back in England, and with the aid of two of the younger passengers, Jane grey, a hairdresser, and Norman Gale, a dentist, (and who form the beginnings of a romantic attachment as a nice little sideline) the plot gradually unfolds, despite the many attempts to misdirect and misinform Poirot, until the culprit is revealed.

So, where does the society figure come it, then? Well, of course, she is one of the suspects. Lady Horbury is an addicted gambler – and she’s also addicted in other ways, too. She really is one of those characters who make me ‘bristle’. I struggle to find anything at all in the way of a redeeming feature. And she is, as you can well imagine, a strong suspect. Whether she did a very clever job on the woman to whom she was in debt and who knew way more about her than she wanted leaking to the press or other members of her society circle, I shall not tell you – obviously!

I’m going to be honest and say that this is not one of my favourite Christie stories, but as ever with books, this is just my subjective opinion. I do, however, think that the plot device used to enable the perpetrator of the crime to do their dastardly deed was very clever. It is one Christie used several times, for example in the short story ‘The yellow iris’, which she extended and which also became the novel Sparkling Cyanide. If you’ve read them, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, I’m not going to spoil it for you!

As ever when I use affiliate links I let you know. Links in this post will take you to Amazon.com. I may earn a tiny commission if you choose to purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you (if you shop on Amazon US, that is).

Have you decided to join in the Read Christie challenge this year? If you have, I’d love to hear about what you’ve been reading. If not, I’d still love to hear about what you’ve been reading – I’m always happy to add to my ‘to be read’ pile! Feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

Happy reading!

Filed Under: Book challenges Tagged With: #ReadChristie2021, Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie books, book challenge, crime and mystery books

Read Christie 2021: my January book choice – Crooked House

30th January 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was participating in the #ReadChristie2021 challenge, and as well as telling you what the official Agatha Christie team have chosen for their January read (The Hollow), I said that I had opted to read something different.

January’s challenge is to read a Christie book set in a grand house. Instead of The Hollow, I chose Crooked House, a book that I first read when I was about sixteen, and which I have recently watched on TV – in fact, this probably prompted my choice because I wanted to compare the original with the adaptation.

Plot

The Leonides family live together in a huge house on the edge of London. They had no idea that one of them could be capable of murder until Aristide Leonides, head of the household, was found poisoned.

Leonides had a regular injection of insulin which the murderer had substituted for eserine. Was the murderer a bit stupid? Whoever it was had not even removed the incriminating evidence. Or was there something much more sinister, much more evil at work here?

Charles Hayward is the son of the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard. He also is about to marry one of the household, Sophia Leonides. Solving this murder therefore becomes his priority and he sets about tracking down the culprit. But will the murderer strike again and, if so, who could possibly be next on the list – and why?

Of the standalone novels, it, for me, stands out as one of the best. It certainly didn’t fail me on that score when re-reading it this month. It has all the hallmarks of classic Golden Age mystery – the amateur sleuth, a tight cast of characters in a closed setting, in this case the English Country House, and one hell of a puzzle to solve. And in this case, it has the added impetus of making the reader seriously question their detecting beliefs, and what they actually want to believe. It is truly incredible (and I mean that in as many ways as you wish to take it).

I think of it often as I’m scanning my Christie bookshelves as one of the stories that really packed a punch for me because it left me truly shocked. No spoilers here, but if you’ve never read Crooked House, I thoroughly recommend it.

If you would like to read Crooked House (whether for the challenge or just for fun):

See it on Amazon UK here.

See it on Amazon US here.

(As always, my disclaimer: some of the links I use are my affiliate links. This means I may earn a small payment if you choose to buy through them. I only ever add affiliate links to books and products I have used and love, so you can always be sure that they are wholehearted recommendations from me.)

I would love to know if you decided to take up the Read Christie 2021 challenge, and if you did, what you decided to read for January and what you thought about your choice. Have you read Crooked House previously and, if so, what did you think of it (try to avoid spoilers in your comments, or mark them clearly beforehand, please, so others who don’t know the story can choose to skip over them).

Happy reading!

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Filed Under: Book challenges, Reading Tagged With: Agatha Christie, crime and mystery fiction, Crooked House, January book choice, mystery books, Read Christie 2021

Read Christie 2021 Challenge

15th January 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

You may have gathered elsewhere on this blog that I am a complete Agatha Christie obsessive and have been for decades. So when I saw on the Agatha Christie website that the third Read Christie challenge was to take place this year, I jumped at the chance to get involved.

The Read Christie 2021 challenge involves choosing and reading a Christie story each month, based on a list of predetermined criteria chosen by the lovely folks over on the Agatha Christie website. For example, the January challenge is to read a Christie story which is set in a grand house.

There are certainly some options there, as one of the frequent traits of Golden Age mysteries was the setting of the country house. This narrowed both setting and cast of characters for the detective who was solving the puzzle. Had it been December, my immediate choice would have been Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. To be fair, I still could, as could you! But more on my personal choice shortly. As you can see, I’ve got plenty of books to choose from!

My immediate thoughts for this challenge are Christie’s very first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Style, and Styles house also features once more in Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. I also think Crooked House and Peril at End House are excellent options. You could certainly also include The Secret of Chimneys in this, as well as maybe the other Chimneys novel, The Seven Dials Mystery, and possibly The Sittaford Mystery, too.

If you want to get involved, you can find out absolutely everything you need to know about the Read Christie 2021 challenge at www.agathachristie.com. There you will find a complete list of monthly challenges, including a suggested list of books relating to each topic and the Agatha Christie team’s monthly choices, too. There’s also a hashtag to use on Instagram and Twitter, if you’re posting about your reads: #ReadChristie2021.

If you do join in, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be blogging about my monthly choice (without spoilers) here, towards the end of each month, and announcing what my following month’s read will be.

My January read, which has to be set in a grand house, is Crooked House.

Happy reading (Christie or otherwise)!

Filed Under: Book challenges, Reading Tagged With: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie books, Christie reading challenge, mystery books, Read Christie 2021

Read Christie 2021: my February book choice – Sad Cypress

11th January 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

The Read Christie 2021 challenge for February was to read a book featuring love. I knew immediately which one I was going to read. Sad Cypress is a novel I read when I was in my early teens and it has truly stuck with me for decades. I can vividly remember where I was, the weather, the seat I was on (in case you’re wondering, it was a sun bed in the back garden), and exactly how I felt when I devoured this book the first time. It, I believe, was completely responsible for my lifelong wish to write books containing poisons (which I did manage to achieve in Baby up the Chimney). Anyway, back to Sad Cypress.

Plot

Elinor Carlisle stands in the dock, accused of murdering Mary Gerrard. Elinor was in line to inherit the estate of her aunt, Mrs Welman, but after an anonymous letter, it seems that Mary Gerrard might have been getting a bit too close to Mrs Welman for some people’s liking. To make matters worse, Elinor’s boyfriend’s sudden love for Mary causes the engagement to be broken off. Meanwhile, Mary, encouraged by the local nurse, nurse Hopkins, has made a will, and now it seems she has something to leave to its recipient. Elinor, too, has made a will, leaving everything she inherits to Roddy, the ex boyfriend.

While clearing out the house and the lodge, Elinor makes sandwiches, and invites Mary and nurse Hopkins who has taken a shine to Mary and is helping out, to have lunch with her. An hour later, Mary is dead.

So, did Elinor poison Mary Gerrard with Morphine in the sandwiches, like the police think she did? Or has someone got it in for Elinor and is framing her for the murder? The local doctor is determined to get Elinor off at all costs, and enlists the help of Hercule Poirot to do so. And Poirot searches for the truth, even if that means he discovers that Elinor is guilty of murder after all.

Okay, so there’s much more to the plot than that, but I really don’t want to give you any spoilers. Onto the book itself…

[Read more…] about Read Christie 2021: my February book choice – Sad Cypress

Filed Under: Book challenges Tagged With: #ReadChristie2021, Agatha Christie, book challenge, crime and mystery books, recommended books, Sad Cypress

Magic, Mystery and Agatha Christie (fiction that made me a writer, part 1)

15th September 2020 by claireladds Leave a Comment

fiction that made me a writer by Claire Ladds

I am almost positive that, if you’re reading this, you have memories of books and stories which have stayed with you long after you first read them, or that have inspired you, or influenced you in some way. I know I have. There are some that have been way more inspirational than I ever could have realised at the time, and these have definitely influenced, not just me as a reader, but the writer in me, too.

The tiny reader ‘me’ gobbles stories

There are books I remember reading as a small child which gave to me, I’m sure, a love of the written word and the power of its magic. I remember vividly my one and only hardback copy of Twinkle. For the life of me now, I can’t remember what was inside, but the feeling I get when I think of it is that books are magical, transportive; the feel of it, the sight of it, the formation of the pages gave me joy and still does, even in memory.

I had a number of Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men books on my shelf, too, which I devoured every day, over and over. Okay, I’m going to admit now that I have a bit of an OCD thing going on when it comes to books and films I love. I obsess about them and read or watch them compulsively and repetitively to the point of driving others bonkers! Anyway, back to the Mr Men… I absolutely loved the characterisation, which is no surprise because character is my favourite aspect of any book. When my brother was in the bathroom, I used to get him to call out two Mr men titles and I’d read the stories to him through the bathroom door (he’ll love me for sharing that!). This reading aloud, though, may well have given me an appreciation of the weight and function of words, and of sound patterns such as alliteration – even though I didn’t know it as such then, but I’m a complete alliteration lover in adulthood.

On a slightly darker note, and much more in keeping with me as a writer, the Mr Men stories also gave me a huge appreciation for the way a threat may come to pass, or a lesson can be learned the hard way, and the endings of these books left an indelible mark on my child sponge brain. I loved this unnerving aspect, the psychological element, and this feeling of just desserts, which created an easy point of transition to my subsequent obsession with Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven books. In fact, I’ve still got all fifteen of them, spines and edges a bit tattered and well-thumbed. The mystery and the need to solve it completely captivated me. The characters felt like friends, right down to Scamper the dog! Reading each mystery adventure, I felt a thrill as each clue was uncovered and I was with the gang all the way, trying to solve the case. At the age of seven or eight, I had no idea that my brain was in training for what was going to become the big passion of my life.

Everything changed with Agatha Christie!

At the grand old age of ten, my dad bought me my first Poirot novel, The ABC Murders. This I devoured quicker than a bar of Cadbury’s (and that’s saying something, believe me!). I absolutely fell in love with Poirot, if that’s a thing you can do with the little Belgian detective. Ever since then I’ve had an enduring and obsessive passion for Agatha Christie’s work and, more generally, the detective story.

[Read more…] about Magic, Mystery and Agatha Christie (fiction that made me a writer, part 1)

Filed Under: My writing, Reading Tagged With: Agatha Christie, fiction writer, mystery books, Poirot, reading, reading crime, Secret Seven

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