Years ago I did a signing at a small family-owned bookstore in Gig Harbor. One of the wonderful things about real live booksellers, is that they usually know exactly which book to put in the hands of specific readers. As I was leaving, they gave me a gift, a used copy of Agatha Christie’s autobiography.

I was a mystery writer, so I knew Dame Agatha’s name, of course, but I had never read any of her books. This was long enough ago that David Suchet’s version of Poirot had yet to make it to PBS. Or, if it had, it was at a stage in my life when I wasn’t watching television. At all.

But I took my gift book home, read it, and found some interesting parallels between my life and hers. Yes, we both wrote mysteries. There was that, of course. And we both had first husbands who were, to say the least, pills. Archibald Christie and Jerry Janc were more or less a matched set of bad apples. When it came to second husbands, however, Agatha’s Max and my Bill, we both lucked out big time. And it turns out, so did they.

When Bill and I met, I was making less than a thousand dollars a year writing books. That’s changed considerably since then. I like to say he knew how to back a winning horse. I’m not sure Max Mallowan knew he was falling into a bed or roses when he married Agatha, but he liked it and soon adjusted to being kept in the manner to which he had become accustomed.

One day, when he was sitting in an easy chair reading the newspaper, Agatha came into the room, threw herself on the couch, and announced. “I shall never write another book. I have quite forgotten how to do it.” Seeing that his gravy train might well be coming to a screeching halt, Max was more than a little concerned. Then, a few days later, when Agatha was doing something else, she heard a door close somewhere and realized who was the bad guy in her next story. As soon as that happened, she was off and running again, and so was the gravy train.

That same drama played out more than once. It reached a point that, when she told Max she would never write another book, he would rattle his newspaper, look up long enough to say “Yes, dear,” and go right on reading.

What my readers need to know is this: Every time I need to start a new book, I go through the same kind of “I shall never write another book” crisis. Sometimes I can get through it in fairly short order. Other times, it’s a real struggle.

Which it has been this time. But here’s the good news:  Yesterday a door opened.