Diane Allen

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a bit of sunshine, this winter has been so long, and the last summer, what a wash-out! But as I sit here writing I can see snowdrops and daffodils trying their best to fight off the snow and blackbirds are fighting for their territories in my garden, so surely spring must be around the corner.

I love spring, trouble is I can't settle down to write, I get itchy feet and have to wander into the garden and look at the plants that are fghting their way through the cold earth. Or I go for a walk just like my Alice in FOR THE SAKE OF HER FAMILY up the fell and just sit and look around me. A little bit of sunshine would make all the difference.

This month I've been hard at it, putting words together for my third novel, which I hope is to be called FOR A FATHER'S PRIDE. I sit and get so involved in the character's lives; in fact they take me over sometimes. I found myself crying the other night over a certain scene when a young lad said goodbye to someone he loved. My husband Ronnie, despairs with me and often asks me whaen I'm talking about something "Is this the real world or Diane Allen's world?" When I say "Agnes is going to Settle today". He must think he's living with a complete mad woman. Still it's all good fun and I hope my characters have a heart and personality, which I hope readers enjoy.
Somebody asked me at a recent talk do you plot the stories? To which I answered I didn't. I start with a main character and an inkling of an idea and waht is going to happen to her and then waht ever follows depends on how the story develops. It can be a little scary at times especially when when you think of the pagination that is required from you by your publisher and you are trying to reach it.
I also write with a Yorkshire dialect running through my head and then amend to what I know people out of the area will understand. I'd love to write in my native dialect but it wouldn't be commercial enough for mass market sales.

I'm looking forward to seeing the cover artwork for FOR A MOTHER'S SINS which Pan Macmillan are to publish in November. It always brings my heroine to life and I find myself tenderly caressing the cover with a tear in my eye. It's a strange feeling to see the woman that you know so well come to life in a picture and your name to be above it.

I do hope that you will enjoy my next book, Molly Mason; the main character is quite a lass! The story is set around the building of the Settle to Carlisle railway, it had to be because my family are so inter-linked with the line.

Anyway must get back to my writing, here's to the coming of spring and lets hope for a lovely warm summer.

Love

Diane
  

I was born in Leeds on Halloween, which I suppose was a warning of what was to come, as I believe that I was not the easiest of babies. However Leeds was not my home city, I was to return to my family farm set high in the Yorkshire Dales and have an idyllic childhood. One of sunshine days in the summer and magical days watching snow falling through frosted windows in our cosy farmhouse kitchen in the winter. It was days of playing Cowboys and Indians, Tadpole catching, flower picking through the summer meadows and sledging in winter. Always safe and secure within my family, my big brother and sister looking after me, along with my busy parents. Christmas was a special time, we always had visitors, and my parents would be busy plucking turkeys that they reared for extra income on the run up to Christmas, which they would then deliver to customers in an old Ford van all over the Dales with me in the back.

It was then, on Christmas Eve, I would tuck under my bed sheets in the freezing cold and hope that Father Christmas had brought me a book in the morning. I didn’t need anything else, just a book, Enid Blyton, especially! I lived for the travelling library coming up our farm track once a fortnight, just to look for the next Little Grey Squirrel book or just rifle through the shelves looking for a book I hadn’t read. Then like any child my teenage years were full of angst and my reading matter changed from lovely sweet stories to the darker side of life. Ira Levin’s, Rosemary’s Baby and Dennis Wheately’s To the Devil a Daughter were now my reading matter anything that caused my parents concern and got me into bother at school.

 Thankfully my rebellion did not last long and I resorted back to classic’s, The Bronte sisters, being my all time favourite author’s. How could any one not fall in love with dark brooding Heathcliffe? The setting on the wild swept moor lands above Haworth not unlike the wild fell land that I was brought up with.

 Now I am manager of a large print book firm in Yorkshire and have access to a host of reading matter, it’s like a child living in a sweet shop. However I still dip into my classic reads and enjoy them as much as ever. I never thought that I would become a writer myself and I am still in a sense of disbelief. I hope that my writing reflects my love of the Yorkshire Dales, my family’s roots being there for centuries.

I aim to include in my writing, my love of family life and the gritty realism that life in the Dales throws at you.  I love the history of the Dales, the people and the wonderful countryside. I hope I never lose the feeling of elation as I stand on top of some God-forsaken fell in the wind and rain, knowing that it is my home. I hope that you will love my Yorkshire and the tales within and please do feel free to contact me, I promise to reply to one and all.