Agatha Christie's Notebooks

In a recent New Yorker I read about the matron of mystery's recently discovered notebooks, children's school exercise books in which she worked out some of her novels' plots. Some of the pages had already been scribbled on by her daughter – penmanship practice and other school work – but Christie used the blank pages for her own work, making lists of possible victims and culprits and motives.

I love coming across such insider information about writers. It's like I've been let in on a secret. It also demystifies the writing a little, which for a reader might not be so satisfying – we like to envision authors working rapturously in a cluttered but sunlit office with a soundtrack playing overtop. But for me, it's encouraging to learn how other writers get the job done, and to know they sometimes employ the same techniques as me. At the end of each school year I save my sons' black-and-white composition notebooks. I recycle the blank pages and save their writing to look back on some day.

Herewith, assorted collections of notebooks, some full and some waiting for words: