EXCHANGING the classroom for a solitary life as a novelist has been, in Annabel Pitcher’s own words, “a big culture shock.”
But in the two years since giving up teaching in order to become a full time writer, the 30-year-old from Wooldale has settled into a comfortable, if sometimes solitary, routine.
“I went from being in a busy school to being on my own in the house,” she says. “I have a study upstairs at home and try to do most of my writing in the morning because that’s when I’m most productive. I’m quite disciplined but I enjoy it so it’s not a chore.
“Then I do my administration. There is a huge amount of paperwork, which I wasn’t anticipating – dealing with the contracts for different countries, foreign rights, emails etc.”
Since becoming a dog owner a few weeks ago – Annabel and her husband Steve have ‘adopted’ a Cockerpoo puppy called Inca – she now builds a daily dog walk into her schedule, something that would have been difficult as a full-time teacher. And she’s also a regular jogger.
“I find that a 30-minute jog can really help clear a brain-blockage,” she explained. “There’s something about movement that keeps thought fluid. The furthest I have ever run is a half marathon and I enjoyed the challenge of training for that while writing my second novel. It helped to have a goal outside of the book”.
Annabel has learned to cope with the solitary nature of writing but says she still misses teaching: “I miss the students and the social side of school. But I don’t miss the marking. On a Sunday I would be fraught about my lesson plans for the week ahead.”
These days her weekends are mostly relaxed. “I never work at weekends and I take the school holidays off to be with my husband.”
Occasionally, however, she does escape from her writer’s study and is asked to return to the classroom, not to teach but to give children talks on writing and becoming an author. She also does promotional tours both in the UK and abroad and was a guest speaker at The Examiner’s literary luncheon in 2011.
“I’ve made trips to Amsterdam and Zaragoza in Spain; I’m going to Paris and there’s talk of an American trip,” she explained. “It sounds way more glamorous than it actually is because all you see is the hotel and the bookshops. My best trip was to Amsterdam when I stayed with the book shop owner.”
Annabel’s first book My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece was conceived during a year-long honeymoon travelling the world. She and Steve, a language teacher, were in Ecuador when the idea for the novel first came to her.
They’d been watching the movie United 93 about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and she began thinking about the victims of terrorism and how their families are affected.
The book, told in the first person by the brother of a girl killed in a terrorist bomb explosion, was written upon her return to England and submitted to an agent.
Annabel, who studied English at Oxford, expected it to net, at the most, a few hundred pounds. Instead she found herself at the centre of a bidding war and was paid an advance that gave her the chance to become a full-time writer.
My Sister has subsequently been nominated for a number of awards and was widely hailed as a masterpiece of children’s fiction. It tackled a wide range of issues – from bereavement, divorce, terrorism, Islamophobia, bullying, alcoholism, friendship, loyalty and love – but with such a lightness of touch that it made the book a far from depressing read.
Her new book, Ketchup Clouds, also covers wide-ranging emotions and is written in a first-person narrative and with a punchy style. While the central theme, once again, is loss, Annabel has woven strands of humour into the novel.
Ketchup Clouds is aimed at young people from the age of 12 or 13 upwards. In it Annabel has captured the essence of what it feels like to be a teenager – including the experiences of first love and sexual awakening.
“But there’s nothing too heavy in there,” she says. “I was aware that my dad was going to read it and I didn’t want the cringe factor. My parents’ approval is really important.”
Annabel comes from a large and supportive family. Her mum and dad, Shelagh and Alan Leech live in Netherthong with her sister Verity nearby; her brother Antony, lives in Uppermill and younger sister Lydia is training to be a teacher.
She says the experience of growing up as one of four has helped her to access the childhood dreams and emotions that children’s authors need. “There are two types of people in the world. Those desperate to grow up and those desperate to stay young. I didn’t want to grow up and I think having a younger brother and sister enabled me to stay attached to that part of my childhood. My sister is seven years younger than me and I can remember reading her Jacqueline Wilson books and enjoying them as much as she did.”
Being a teacher has also proved to be useful. “Just being around teenagers all day meant that I was interested in what they were interested in,” she said. “But I have deliberately not used any cultural references in my books, I have tried to capture the essence of what it is to be a teenager and that’s not something that really changes from generation to generation.”
Annabel admits that her debut novel was easy to write. “It was effortless. I wrote it while I was travelling,” she says.
But she laboured long and hard in her study over Ketchup Clouds. She explained: “I had a deadline and expectations. It was much trickier but I learned more about being a professional author from it.
“I must have done 60 or 70 variations on chapter one. I had to find the voice for the central character.
“Being an author is not this idyllic existence where you are doing a bit of writing. The pressure close to deadline was like nothing I have ever experienced. I found myself writing for 20 hours out of 24 to get something finished. I have agonised over every comma.”
But this attention to detail shows in every line of her writing. The ‘voice’ that she finally found sounds real and the story is compelling enough to keep the reader hooked until the very end.
Annabel is now working on her third book, which will be completed in April 2013 for publication later in the year, and she is also contracted for a further, fourth, novel.
It’s fair to say that she can now call herself an established author – and a member of Huddersfield’s distinguished literary community.
l If you’d like to meet Annabel she’s signing copies of Ketchup Clouds on January 12 at Waterstones in Wakefield and again on January 26 in the Huddersfield store.
l ‘Ketchup Clouds is published by Indigo, an imprint of Orion, at £9.99 in hardback and £5.99 as an ebook
Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret – a dark and terrible secret that she can’t confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe he is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder.
Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can – in letters to the man in prison. Unable to sleep one night she grabs a pen, takes a deep breath and begins her tale of love and betrayal.’
