MY WRITING DAY
ANNABEL STREETS
The author of books about walking and wellbeing tells Lynne Hackles about starting her day with a walk
Annabel Streets is a full-time writer. Her fiction and non-fiction books have been translated into more than thirty languages. She also writes for a number of newspapers and magazines.
‘I’m an as-and-when writer,’ she says. ‘I don’t stick to a rigid schedule but write around the rest of life. I always start the day with a walk of around 45 minutes to a coffee-serving bakery that opens at 7.30. I’m usually the first customer and arrive with a proper china cup. I then follow a route through a cemetery where I inspect a couple of different graves every day. Almost everyone in the cemetery died in middle-age and many are buried with their dead children. It’s a salutary reminder that I’m very lucky to be alive. Any gripes or worries fade away and I’m ready to get home and start working. I don’t count my steps because I know this walk is around 4,000.