Amy Wild, Animal Talker: The Musical Mouse

About Diana Kimpton

Diana Kimpton has written more than forty books for children, including her Pony-Mad Princess series, other novels, picture books and non-fiction. She has always loved horses and finds that writing about them gives her the perfect excuse to spend time at the stables when she should be working.
Diana says " I've always made up stories. When I was a child, I did it in my head using characters from my favourite TV programmes or the horses I dreamed of owning. But I never saw writing as a possible career, especially as I didn't like English at secondary school. Perhaps I was already too much a writer at heart to enjoy dissecting other people's books. So I left school and became a maths teacher which I didn't like. Then I left teaching and became a mother which I loved. Finally, in the time left over from parenting, I became a writer which is such fun that I don't ever want to stop."

Here's Diana talking about her writing...

A Q&A with Diana about her new novel, There Must Be Horses

What led you to write There Must Be Horses?
I wanted to write a longer book for readers who had grown out of my Pony-Mad Princess books. But I was keen not to write a story about winning red rosettes, so I started investigating horse whispering and horse behaviour. While I was doing that I became fascinated with the similarity in the way both horses and humans lose trust in people if they have bad experiences and that became the trigger for the plot.

 
Did you do much research for the book?
Masses. I even bought a horse of my own to try out all the methods I had read about. That was my excuse anyway. I'd always wanted a pony, and Kubus is far more than just a research project - he's a friend. He's also triggered an idea for another book that's just starting to brew in my head.
 

How long did it take you to write the book?
Ages - I've never spent so long on any book. I wrote the first chapter five years ago, just to see if Sasha worked as a character. Then I stopped writing while I worked on the Amy Wild - Animal Talker books, but I kept on with the research and let the story grow on my head. Once I settled down to work on the book again, I spent about a year finalising the plot and actually writing it down.