When people ask me how I started writing, I find myself describing an urgent need that I felt to work with language. Having said that, I did not know for a long time what I was looking for. It was not until I followed this feeling to its source that I discovered I had a passion for writing. With some encouragement from my colleagues, I had one of my poems published. This bit of success, however, was the point where my problem began.

Back in 1978, I had to travel between three different campuses in the morning, teaching freshman composition. Afternoons I spent taking my daughter to her ballet and horse-riding lessons. I composed my lectures on the way, and that was all the thinking time I had. When I returned home, there was not enough of me left for writing after a full working day.

As a way out, I decided to get up two hours before my usual time. My alarm was set for 5:00 A.M. The first day I shut it off because I had placed it within arm's reach. The second day I set two clocks, one on my night table, and one out in the hallway. I had to jump out of bed and run to silence it before my family was awoken. This was when my morning writing began.

Since that first morning in 1978, I have been following the habit to this day, not making or accepting many excuses for not writing. I wrote my poems in this manner for nearly ten years before my first book was published. When I decided to write a novel, I divided my two hours: the first for poetry, the second for fiction. Well or badly, I wrote at least two pages a day. This is how my novel, The Line of the Sun. was finished. If I had waited to have the time, I would still be waiting to write my novel.

What I got out of getting up in the dark to work is the feeling that I am in control. For many people, the initial sense of urgency to create easily dies away because it requires making the tough decision: taking the time to create, stealing it from yourself if ifs the only way.

When readers talk about famous British writer Agatha Christie, it seems that her famous detective novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are must-reads. So, of course, are her best-selling novels Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937).

But when readers around the world were asked to name their favorite Christie novel to mark her 125th birthday in September, And Then There Were None (1939) topped the list, reported The Guardian. And the BBC TV adaptation of the novel will premiere on Dec 26.

It may surprise you to learn that it is a crime novel without a detective. What it does have is suspense and a very sinister (邪恶的) atmosphere.

In the story, a group of 10 people gets an invitation to come to a house on a small island near Devon in South West England. Nobody refuses these invitations since each one is promised something the person wants: a job, a holiday, a chance to meet up again with an old friend ...

These people are all responsible for deaths. Some are directly responsible, others are responsible because of what they did not do. Anthony James Marston, for instance, killed two children while driving dangerously. He did not feel guilty and actually complained when he was banned from driving. Another, Emily Caroline Brent, is a harsh person who threw out a young servant for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The servant later killed herself.

When they arrive at the house they are played a recording. The voice gives details of the wrongdoing of each of the guests. Starting with Marston, each is killed in a way that fits his or her crime. The series of deaths is completed with a hanging, “and then there were none”, as the title suggests.

Some of Christie’s works have a predictable ending, but this book is full of clever writing. Look it up to find out what this hugely successful mystery writer, the “Queen of Crime” as she was called, could do at her best.