>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. >> Robert Newlen: Of course you all know Diana's books, or you wouldn't be here. But let me say just a few words about her and her remarkably original novels. They're a bit science fiction, a lot historical fiction, and they're all infused with fantasy, military fiction, and a very appealing dose of romance. A novel by Diana is a genre all to itself. And that unique approach to large canvas, big-brained, openhearted storytelling has won her millions of readers worldwide. She's an Arizona native, part Anglo American -- thank you, [inaudible], yes, [laughter] part Mexican American. She has a bachelors degree in zoology, a masters in marine biology, and a PhD in animal behavior, as well as being an expert in scientific computation and micro-computing. But don't let that scare you. [Laughter] She has also spent her early career as a comic book scriptwriter, and in many ways, she is a woman for all seasons, and a writer for all ages. As the reviewers have said Diana writes books that sell like crazy, and have gathered devoted readers from every corner of fandom. By several reckonings, the "Outlander" series has sold about 28 million books -- I had 25, but she corrected me, [laughter] since Diana's first novel was published in 1991. The series has been translated into 43 different languages. You all know the titles, "Dragonfly in Amber," "Voyager," "The Scottish Prisoner," "The Fiery Cross," "An Echo in the Bone," "Written in my Own Heart's Blood," just to mention a few. They have all been New York Times bestsellers, they have won many prizes, and they have been called "breakneck," "rip-roaring," and, "totally addictive." At the end of the talk, you'll have a chance to pose questions to Diana at one of the microphones you see set up in the aisles. So save up your thoughts and ideas. I need to tell you, though, you will be on camera and archived in the Library of Congress into perpetuity, [laughter] so make that question a smart one. [Laughter] You'll also have a chance to have Diana sign your books at her 1:00 signing session down on the lower level. So without further adieu, please welcome our author of the moment. ^M00:02:44 [ Applause ] ^M00:03:04 >> Diana Gabaldon: Well, thank you, Robert. I'm going to remember "big-brained, open-hearted storytelling" for my next cover blurb. Thank you so much to the organizers, and to all of the wonderful volunteers who have kept me from getting lost this morning, or at least have recovered me when I was lost. And thank you to all of you who could just as easily be at home washing your cars or something. I'm glad you came to see me instead. Back in the day, when I would go out at night to do events and talk to people, my husband would say to me, "Well, doesn't it bother you having to go out and talk to all of these totally strange people?" I think he meant "total strangers," but [laughter] I said, "Well, no." I said, "You know, I've been a university professor for a long time, I'm kind of used to talking to large crowds." And I said, "If I can keep people awake at 8:00 in the morning talking about human anatomy and physiology, I can probably keep them awake at 8:00 in the evening if they came on purpose to hear me." Back in the day, I would tell very large crowds, maybe 400 or so, because human anatomy and physiology, one of my classes, was a very popular one. Everybody took it as a science elective, including the football team, because they thought it would be easy. I mean, how hard can it be; count your fingers. [Laughs] But anyway, they would all show up in the morning, it was an early class, and they'd all sit in the front row, sound asleep, these large inanimate blobs of flesh. [Laughter] And I would be standing at a podium like this. So I would step up and say, "This morning, gentlemen, we're going to discuss the history of contraception." And they would all start blinking. [Laughing] See, "In days of old when nights were bold and condoms not invented, they wrapped old socks around their cocks and babies were prevented." [Laughter] ^M00:04:54 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:59 Yes. Well, it worked on the football players, too. [Laughter] No; people always say to me, "Well, how did you get from being a scientist, you know, with all these degrees and things to being a novelist?" And I said, "Well, easy, I wrote a book. I mean, they don't make you get a license." [Laughter] No; but what they actually mean is well science seems all cold, and clinical, and orderly and tidy, and white-coded, and, you know, cold. And writing, you know, it's this creative thing, it must be all wonderful, and colorful, and warm and fuzzy and so forth. And I'd say, "Well." No; the thing is science and art both are two sides of the same coin. They both rest on the same thing, which is the ability to perceive patterns and draw patterns out of chaos. When you do science, you define your chaos by the choice of subject, you know, your organism, your ecosystem, whatever you're studying. And then within that, you try to define and pick out the patterns and explicate them to people. Same thing when you do a novel, then you're defining your chaos by the subject that you choose, or the genre, but also you include your own internal chaos as part of that subject. And you try to make the patterns equivalent. Well, in science, you come up with a hypothesis. You say, "I think this is what's happening in my system," and then you try to support it by means of experiment. Well, your novel is your hypothesis, and your experiment is the audience. So you release it upon your audience and you see whether they see the same patterns you do, which, you know, evidently you do, so thanks. [Laughter] But as to how I got here, well, I've known since about the age of eight that I was meant to be a novelist. This was the age at which I realized that people write books, that they don't just pop out of the shelves like, you know, toilet paper in the grocery store. And so I said, "Well, yes, I think that's what I should do. I was actually having a conversation with God about it one day. I was raised as a Catholic and they told us, you know, it's not just to organize prayers, you know, you should talk to God about your life and so forth." So at the age of eight, I was kind of doing that. We were driving somewhere with my parents, and I was looking at the clouds and so forth. And, you know, I was just talking to God. Anyway, so you know, "I'm thinking I kind of want to write books, you know, that would kind of lift people up." That was my best description of escape fiction, you know, take a story that would lift people out of themselves and give them a new experience. Anyway, God said, "Yes; I think that's a good idea." So, you know, [laughter] I kind of -- people said, "Well, how did you find the nerve, you know, to do this," and I said, "I was supposed to do this; that's not a problem." But of course, the problem is always how, because when you set out to write a book, there are no road maps. I was once in Germany doing a book tour. And the publisher, and the publicist, and, you know, all these news people took me out to lunch together. And they started asking, "Well, how did you do this? How did you write your novel?" And so I explained to them what I'm about to explain to you. And they were all shocked. You know, they said, "No one in Germany would dream of trying to write a novel without first getting a PhD in literature." And I said, "That's probably why two-thirds of the authors in your catalogue are Americans." [Laughter] I did not actually say that because I have better manners, but, you know, that's what I thought. [Laughter] Anyway, the thing is that anyone who writes a novel is going to kind of figure it out for themselves. You know, if you want to be dentist, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or something, there is a set curriculum that you take. You have to enroll in this particular school, you have to take these particular classes, you pass these particular formal exams, and they give you a certificate that says, "Now you are allowed to be a doctor," or whatever. Okay; you don't need permission to be a novelist. This is the good thing. The bad thing is that there are no rules to follow either. And people always have their own individual take on it. I don't know a single author who just sat down and became an author overnight. Most of us have had very checkered background in one way or another. I don't know if you're familiar with Ian Rankin. He's a Scottish author, very, very good, one of my favorites, and a good friend, yes. But before I knew him personally, I was reading his books, and I would read the little bio in the back, and it would always give his previous occupations as including tax collector and swine herd. And [laughter] so when I finally met him, I said, "Well, I have to ask Ian what is it about -- how did you get to come a swine herd? I don't care how you got to be a novelist, I want to hear about the pigs." And he said that well he was younger, he and his wife had gotten jobs as domestic servants on a French winery estate. And his wife took care of the interior domestic things, and he took care of the outside things, including slopping the hogs, and so forth. And he said that it was a very old-fashioned estate. When they did the harvest, they actually did in fact strip off and stomp the grapes and everyone got very drunk. And he said so they did that, and consequently everyone went to sleep it off including him. Well, when he got up several hours later, he realized that he had not yet fed the hogs. And so he went out and he found a large tub full of the discarded wine -- or grape skins from the stomping. And so he tossed these into the pigs' trough, and the pigs, of course, went after them. What he hadn't realized was that the grape skins had been standing in the sun for several hours, and the pigs all died of alcohol poisoning. [Gasping] Yes. [Laughs] He said that that was the end of his career as a swine herd, so I thought I'd better write novels. [Laughter] Yes. Well, luckily, none of my previous careers have come to quite such a dramatic conclusion, but I have had quite a few -- let me see, I had the post-doc appointment where my job was to butcher sea birds. Luckily, I didn't have to kill them, they came pre-killed from Canada and frozen. But it was my job to take something like a genet -- genets are these big diving birds that have a wing spread of about six feet, and they dive from about 50 feet up. Consequently, their heads are made of solid concrete because they strike the water that way. And so I was supposed to reduce all of these different birds to 15 different body components, which I could then analyze for their protein, water, and fat content. Just don't ask why; but that was my job. Anyway, I learned to pluck and reduce a genet in about three hours flat. But the hard part was the head because you had to use the hammer and chisel, you know, to break the skull and pour the brain out, which was part of the components that we wanted. That was probably my most disgusting job. I couldn't eat fried chicken for a year after that. [Laughter] The next one was a little easier. I was a post-doc at UCLA replacing a scientist on sabbatical. So I took over his lab, and his six graduate students, and two Russian scientists who were studying with him. And after the Russians left, the next day an FBI agent showed up in my office, two of them, with a little warrant badge and so forth. And one of them dramatically introduced himself as Special Agent Justice. And I said, "Of course, you are." [Laughter] That actually turned out to be his real last name. But anyway they wanted to interview me about this particular Russian. And I told them about him, and I said, "Look, if this gentleman is the best the KBG can do, we have nothing to worry about." [Laughter] But then I mentioned the second Russian, and they said, "Oh, we didn't know about him." And I said, "Maybe we do have something to worry about." But anyway, it was a more interesting job in that in that one what I had to do was take high-speed motion picture films of boxfish. And the reason we were doing this is because -- you may know this, those of you who are runners and so forth, but the more you run or the more you exercise, the more oxygen you use. So if you take a person or an animal and you put them in a sealed compartment with, you know, a set amount of oxygen and you make them exercise faster and faster, their oxygen consumption goes up, the amount of oxygen in the tank goes down. And so you get this nice 45-degree angle graph, you know, more oxygen, more exercise. Well, boxfish don't do that. A boxfish, in case you have never seen one, is very aptly named, it's a little box of, you know, hard shell. And their fins are just on the outside. They're not like regular fish where they swim in this [inaudible] form motion, they have a strachae form motion because they are strachiadae. So they swim like this, and their little tail goes like that. But that's all the maneuvering they can do. And the funny thing about them is if you make a boxfish exercise, they will go faster, and faster, and faster, looking agitated as they do. And they use more and more oxygen up to a point. And then they go faster and faster, but they don't use anymore oxygen. And so we said, "How are they doing that? This is really cool." Yes; so the person I was working with had several hypotheses to account for that. But the first one of those was maybe they're doing what people do. You know, when you walk faster and faster, at some point, you shift into a run because that's more efficient for the speed you're going. And at that point, your oxygen use will drop slightly; goes back up if you keep running. But we were thinking maybe these guys are doing something special with their fins. So I was having to do high-speed motion pictures. Well, this was back in the 1980s, the late 1980s. Consequently, I had to shoot my film, and then take it to the CBS TV Studio to have it processed. We talked them into it as a public service. So you know, I would go down behind the Johnny Carson Show stage and give them my fish films, and then I would go back and pick them up the next day. It was an interesting place to work. Also it was -- we lived in Burbank, and this is when I started writing Walt Disney comic books on the side. I'd been reading comic books since I was three years old; that's how my mother taught me to read. And I kept on reading them. And while I was working at UCLA, I had picked up one at the grocery store, and I said, "Well, this is pretty bad, I bet I could do better myself." And such was my state of mind that I found out the name of the editor who handled that line and I wrote him this very rude letter saying, "Dear Sir, I have been reading your comic books for 25 years. They've been getting worse and worse." I said, "I'm not sure that I could do better myself, but I'd like to try." And luckily, I hit a man named Dell O'Connell, who was a gentleman with a sense of humor. ^M00:14:50 ^M00:14:51 He wrote back and said, "Okay, try." And he sent along a format so I could see what shape the manuscript should be. So I wrote him a story. He didn't buy it, but he did something much more valuable, he told me what was wrong with it. So he did buy my second story and he continued to buy my stories for another 18 months, at the end of which the powers that be at Disney said, "We've got 40 years of Carl Barks scripts in our file; why are we buying new ones?" And they stopped buying new ones. But so that was my short-lived comic book career. But I still get a dozen or so stories out of it, which was good when I contrast with what I was doing at work. Anyway, I had to build a water tunnel and make the fish swim in it. It has a fan at one end. And fish will normally face into a current, so it was not a problem to get them going in the right direction. But you would turn on the fan and they would start swimming like this, and you'd turn it up, and they'd swim like this. And then you turn it up, and they'd be going -- and finally they'd be going [makes sounds]. And they just fall over backwards, in which you would instantly turn it out and pull them out with a net and take them off to recover. You know, we were not killing them. And then, you know, you would process the film and so forth. So that's what I spent another few years doing. But at the age of 35, I said to myself, "Well, you know, Mozart was dead at 36. If you want to write a book, maybe you should get started." And so I said, "Okay; on my next birthday, I will begin writing a book." I didn't -- I had to this point, written all kinds of things. I'd written, you know, doctoral dissertations. My PhD dissertation was titled "[Inaudible]," or as my husband says, "Why Birds Build Nests Where They Do and Who Cares Anyway?" [Laughter] But, you know, it was a 400-page dissertation, or let's see, an 800-page monograph on dietary habits of the birds of the Colorado River Valley. You might notice a trend here, you know, 400 pages, 800 pages. But I also, you know, wrote a computer documentation. I wrote software reviews for the computer press, and, you know, other things like this. Back in the day, my father would say to me, "You're such a poor judge of character. You're bound to marry some bum," he said, "so be sure you get a good education to support your children." [Laughter] This is how I ended up with three science degrees. But, you know, I still wanted to write novels and so forth. But in the course of my previous career, I had gotten all kinds of experience in writing, just not writing novels. I did not marry a bum, I married a very nice man whom I still have 45 years later, and -- thank you. ^M00:17:24 [ Applause ] ^M00:17:29 And my husband thanks you. [Laughs] But he did quit work three months after our first child was born in order to start his own business. And I do have to say that between an entrepreneur and a bum, there's not that much to choose in terms of financial stability. Now, luckily, his business got going fairly quickly and did quite well. But for the first two or three years, I was our sole support, and they don't assistant biology professors that much. So at this point, the need to earn extra money arose. And so I said, "Well, what can I do to earn a little extra money, you know, other than prostitution in the home?" And [laughter] I said, "Well, I know how to write, I mean, you know, I'm grammatical, I know punctuation, all that. And I know quite a lot about computers." This happened as an accident when I was -- all of the, you know, things in my life have happened as accidents, including meeting my husband; I met him in the French horn section of the Arizona marching band. [Laughter] But anyway, in this particular instance, the accident had more to do with my job, that is, I was hired at Arizona State University because they had money allocated for the position. But as they said, "We have this money, but it's soft money. If we don't spend it, they'll take it away, so you're hired." And they said, "This is how government works, in case you were wondering." And they were saying, "So we don't actually have anything for you to do. We would like for you to develop your own research. But while you're doing it, maybe you could help Bob here who is the assistant professor and the assistant director with his data." Said, "ob has, you know, ten years' worth of data in his back room. And you have a computer background," by which they meant I have one class in Fortran programming. [Laughter] But it was one more than any of them had, and so they said, "So you can help Bob get his data into the computer." This was like 1981. "Macro computers," as they were called, were just barely coming into offices and universities at the time, and they still thought that you poured data in the top, and then you got reports out at the bottom. So it was my job how to figure out how to get the top off the computer and get the data into it. So I spent the next 18 months of my life writing Fortran programs to analyze the contents of bird gizzards. There's actually a reason why I'm telling you this. There's a reason why I write long books, it's because I like digressions. But [laughter] anyway at the end of this 18 months of work I said, "There's maybe five other people in the entire world who are interested in bird gizzards, but it would save each of them 18 months' worth of work if they knew about these programs I've written." I was thinking, "There must be other people out there who are, you know, employing this new tool, computers, and doing science. Why is there no way in which we can communicate?" So I took out a little ad in the newsletters of all the scientific societies I could find, and I explained what I was doing. And I said I know there are other people out there doing this. Why won't you write to me? If there's enough of us, maybe we can put together a little newsletter of our own." So I got 300 letters in two months. And I took these to the director of my center, and I said, "Well, I'm not having any luck getting money out of the NSF, but I think I've started something here. Can you front me a little money from petty cash and I'll see what I can do?" So he gave me $250. I printed up some brochures and I took them to the next conference that I was going to, and handed them out on the floor to people. Well, I raised enough money in charter subscriptions to start Science Software Quarterly, which was a scholarly journal for scientists who used computers in their work, which was fun. Anyway, I ran that for about eight years and I developed, you know, seminars for an international group of scientists who wanted to come learn about laboratory automation, and data acquisition, and that kind of stuff. All of which is just to explain how it was that I had a second career at the time. So I was teaching, and I was a university professor, and I was doing my own research, but I also developed this secondary career. When the need for extra money arose, I said, "Okay; I know about computers and I can write." So I wrote a quick query letter to Byte, and Info World, and PC Mag, and I sent it with a copy of my Science Software Quarterly, and a copy of a comic book that I had done for Walt Disney called "Nutrition Adventures with Orange Bird [phonetic]." And it was a real short query. It said, "Dear sirs, as you can see from the enclosed, you won't find anyone who knows more about scientific and technical software than I do, and at the same time, can write so as to appeal to a broad popular audience." Well, this got immediate results, and, you know, within a few months, I was making as much freelancing for the computer press as I was at the university, which just goes to show how badly they pay assistant professors. But anyway, at the time, when I made up my mind to write a book, I was 36 years old, I had two fulltime jobs and three children under the age of six. So I don't want anyone telling me that they don't have time to write a book. [Laughter] If you want to write a book, you'll make the time. I mean, nobody finds time; it's not just lying around in the street. Unfortunately, you have to make it, or you don't have any. But, you know, the time and so forth. And the question is always -- says a lot of people, especially women, they said, "I can't justify taking time away from my family, you know, to be doing something like writing, you know, this frivolous silly thing." And my first question is, "Do you watch television?" And I said, "Okay; I do feel like that's a waste of your time because, you know, it's a choice. Why don't you take one of the hours you would spend watching television and work on your book?" Because it's fairly simple. I was talking to Rick Rankin, one of the new cast members for the "Outlander" TV show. He was -- oh yes he's very nice; he's really charming. Yes; he sort of walked into the makeup room, spotted me. We had never met before. He walked over and kissed me and I said, "Really, okay." Well, [laughter] Scotsmen are different, yes. They all do that, actually. But anyway, he was talking to me later about writing and so forth. And he said, "You know, I've always wanted to write a book, but, you know, time." I said, "Look," I said, "if you have ten minutes a day, and you can do it every day, you can write a book." I said, "Take that ten minutes and write. Okay; if that's all you've got, that's all you've got. But do it the next day." I said, "If you write ten minutes every day, you will have a book within a year. It may not be a big book, but you'll have a book." I said, "If you don't do that, you won't have a book. It's that simple. You know, you'll have time. It doesn't have to be a big amount of time." Lots of people think, "Oh, I can't possibly write unless I have eight hours a day, and individual support, and a room of my own, and, you know, everybody is keeping everybody away from me so that I can write." And it kind of doesn't work that way. You know, you write any way is what it comes down to. So anyway, I kind of knew that because of what else I was doing. And so I just involved the writing into my regular routine. But I went immediately to think, "What am I going to write?" And because I read everything, and lots of it. And I said, "Well, maybe I should write a mystery; I love mysteries." And I said, "No; mysteries have plots. I'm not sure I can do that." And -- [laughter] well I never had. And so I said, "Okay; what's the easiest thing to write?" No point making it hard. And so I thought, "Well, for me, maybe a historical novel would be the easiest thing to write. I was a research professor; I knew my way around a library. I said, "It seems easier to look things up than to make them up." And if I turn out that I have no imagination, I can steal things from the historical record," which actually works pretty well. And so I said, "All right, historical novel; where shall I set this," because I've got no background in history, just the six hours of Western Civilization they make you take as an undergraduate. And so any time would do as well as another. And so I said, "Okay; let me think about this." And so I was thinking, you know, "15th century Venice, you know, American Civil War, what sounds interesting?" Well, in this malleable frame of mine, I happened to see a really old Dr. Who rerun on public television. And this -- thank you. Yes; it was one of the really old ones. It was Patrick Troughton, the second doctor. For those of you who may not be familiar with "Dr. Who," it's a really old, really long-running show done in the UK. Originally, it was a kids' show, but now much more adult. The thesis, or the premise of the show is that the doctor is a time lord from the planet Galifre, who travels through space and time having adventures. And along the way, he picks up companions from different periods of Earth's history. Well, in this particular show, he had picked up a young Scotsman from 1745. And this was a, you know, nice looking young man who appeared in his kilt. And I said, "That's rather fetching." [Laughter] And I found myself still thinking about this the next day in church. And I said, [laughter] "Well, you know, you want to write a book, it doesn't really matter. Fine, let's start there, Scotland, 18th century." So that's where I began, knowing nothing about Scotland or the 18th century, having no plot, no outline, and no characters, just the rather vague images conjured up by the notion of a man in a kilt, which is, of course, a very powerful and compelling image. [Laughter] In fact, some years later, my sixth book, which was a very lucky book for me, it won several awards, including the Corine International Prize for Fiction, which is cool. And I got to go to Germany to accept it. Well, while I was there, the German editor had me interviewed by everybody in the German media from, you know, the tabloid newspapers on up. And toward the end of this very long week, I was talking to a nice man from a literary magazine. And he said, "Oh, I've read all of your work, you know, your characters are so three-dimensional. Your narrative drive is tremendous. You know, your imagery, it's just transcendent." I'm thinking, "Yes, yes, go on." [Laughter] And instead he said, "There's just this one thing, I wonder, can you explain to me what is the appeal of a man in a kilt?" [Laughter] Well, he was a man, and a German. And anyway, I was really tired or might not have said it, but I just looked at him for a minute and I said, "I suppose it's the idea that you could be up against a wall with him in a minute." ^M00:27:09 [ Laughter ] ^M00:27:21 Yes; so that is actually in case any of you gentlemen were wondering. [Laughter] But anyway, a man in a kilt, as I say. So that's why I chose Scotland, and that is why I chose Scotland in the 18th century, you know, there it is. [Laughter] So anyway, I went immediately to the library and began looking up Scotland in the 18th century. Now, the only thing I actually knew about books or writing a novel was that it should have conflict. You know, I had a minor in English and that was the sole sum of my knowledge from that, conflict. And so you don't look for conflict in Scotland in the 18th century for very long without running smack into [inaudible] Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion. And I said, "Well, that looks like plenty of conflict, fine, we'll use them." And so that's where I began. I was just doing research at the same time as I was writing, and, you know, just beginning feeble stabs at writing. I was just putting down bits and pieces of, you know, just vaguely imagined things with my man in a kilt. And none of those ever made it into the published book. But as I was working with this, I was thinking, "Well, you know, essentially it's Scots versus English here. And I must have a lot of Scotsmen, of course, for the kilt factor. But it would be a good idea if I had a female character to play off these guys, you know, sexual tension, that sort of thing." I said, "So if I make her an English woman, we will have lots of conflict." So on the third day of writing, I introduced this English woman, no idea who she was, what she was doing there, or how she was going to carry out on the story. But I loosed her into a cottage full of Scotsmen to see what she'd do. Well, she walked in, and they were all seated around the fire muttering to each other. They turned around, stared at her. And I'm thinking, "Why, does she look funny? You know, what's going on here?" Anyway, one of them drew himself up and he said, "My name's Dugal McKenzie, and who are you?" And she looked up and without my stopping to think I just typed, "My name is Claire Elizabeth Beecham, and who the hell are you?" [Laughter] And I said, "Okay; you don't sound at all like an 18th century person." So I fought with her in several pages trying to beat her into shape and make her talk like an 18th century person. But she wasn't having any, she just kept making smart ass modern remarks. And she also took over and started telling the story herself. And I said, "Okay; I'm not going to fight with you all the way through this book." I said, "No one's ever going to see this. It doesn't matter what bizarre thing I do, go ahead and be modern and I'll figure out how you got there later." So it's all her fault that there's time travel in these books. [Laughter] But you know, once having made that decision, well obviously anything else went. So, you know, while the historical background is as accurate as history itself is, which means -- which is to say not necessarily all the truth, but it was all the truth, it was written down. Anyway, the background is very accurate. But part of the art of immersion in popular fiction is by making little connections with your readers amongst those details they can identify with. And I can tell you what, if you are very, very good at making the details of daily life believable, then your readers will follow you right over a cliff when you ask them to believe in time travel. [Laughter] That's how you do it. So there is a lot of research involved in these books, but, you know, I was a research professor and that's how it works. Well, let's see, how are we doing for time? Okay, we have two minutes before we start questions and so forth. So that is just about enough time to explain how I got from this point to actually being published, because this was this book I was never going to show anyone. Well, what happened was that owing to my computer background and so forth, I had stumbled into a group of people called the "CompuServe Literary Forum." It was just by accident while I was doing research for one of the software reviews I was doing. And this was like a 24-hour electronic cocktail party amongst people who liked books. There are many, many readers, and some writers of all degrees of ability. But, you know, it was a great place -- and for someone with two social -- two fulltime jobs and three small children, it was the ideal social life. So I signed on and was hanging around there. Well, I was certainly not going to tell any of these people what I was doing, but one day, I found myself engaged in an ongoing argument with a gentleman about what it feels like to be pregnant. And [laughter] he said, "Oh, I know what that's like, my wife's had three children." And I laughed. I said, "Yes, buster," I said, "I've had three children." And he said, "Well, can you tell me what it's like?" I said, "I can, yes, but it's kind of complex. I don't think I could fit it in a 30-line message slot," which is what we had. I said, "I'll tell you what, though, I have this little piece I wrote a few months ago in which a woman tells her brother in some detail what it's like to be pregnant." I'll put it up for you and you can see. So I put up this piece in order to win the argument, which I did. And everyone who had been following the argument went and read the piece. And they came rushing back. And they said, "This is great, what is it?" And I said, "I don't know." And they said, "Well, where's the beginning?" And I said, "I haven't written that yet." And they said, "Well, put up some more of it." So over time, I began putting up more little pieces, just -- I don't write in a straight line and I don't write with an outline, I write where I can see things happening. But if I had a piece that I thought was, you know, comestible as it was, you know, fit for human consumption, I would put it up every two or three months. People got more and more interested. Anyway, the bottom line is that a friend online who had read my pieces and the response to them said, "I know you must be ready to look for an agent. Would you like me to recommend you to mine?" And I had actually researched his agent and I said, "That would be great, John, thank you." And I was afraid that John would leave CompuServe or be run over by a bus before I finished the book, so I said, "Yes, go ahead." And so he wrote -- Perry Nolton was the agent's name, he wrote Perry a nice note saying, "Everybody thinks this woman is hilarious, you know, she's probably worth looking at." And I followed that with my own note and I said, "Dear Mr. Nolton, I've been writing and selling nonfiction by myself for some years, but I understand now that I need a good literary representation. You've been recommended to me by John, and Judy and all these people." I said, "I have this very long novel. I don't want to waste your time. Would you be willing to read excerpts from it?" I didn't tell him I wasn't done writing it; excerpts were all I had. [Laughter] But he very kindly called back and said yes he would read your excerpts, and the basis was -- he took me on, on the basis of an unfinished first novel, which was not common then, and is not common now, either, but very lucky for me. Anyway, in the fullness of time, I didn't finish writing the book, and I gave it to him and I said, "I can tell there's more to this story, but I thought I should stop while I could still lift it." And he said, "Okay." And I said, "But you could tell people there's more if they're interested." So luckily, he sent it out to five editors who he thought might like it, and within four days, three of them had called back with offers to buy it, which was also lucky. So he negotiated amongst them for two weeks and came back with a three-book contract. And bing, I was a novelist. ^M00:33:42 [ Applause ] ^M00:33:53 Great; well thank you very much. Well, I think we have now reached the time for questions. And we have this enterprising young man who has got the microphone already. We have a microphone at the beginning of each aisle, so any of you who are interested in asking a question, you can come up there. Okay, yes, sir. >> Well, Diane, I love the modern world, and yesterday my muse and I beamed you into our kitchen. So I met you yesterday already. >> Diana Gabaldon: Hmm. >> I come from New Zealand. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, yes; yes. >> And we've spent the last three years doing the third polish on something that I've been working on. And I love your story about how you got an attorney. So how many books have you sold? >> Diana Gabaldon: How many books; 28 million is the latest estimate. >> Well, congratulations. So you -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. [Laughs] >> Yes; anyway, that was my question, how many books have you sold? >> Diana Gabaldon: That was an easy one; thank you. Perfect; and you, sir? >> I am a recent convert -- [laughs] >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. >> To your books. My wife introduced me to them. >> Diana Gabaldon: Wonderful; yes. >> And they're quite enjoyable. I'm a history teacher. So as you're writing these books and as you see these progress -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. >> I know there's a nice book coming out sometime? >> Diana Gabaldon: Sometime, yes. [Laughter] >> Can you give us any hints on where that may take us, what location the main characters may be at? >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, where may the next book take us -- >> Yes. >> Diana Gabaldon: In terms of time, location, et cetera? >> Yes; yes. >> Diana Gabaldon: Well, vaguely, yes, we are in North Carolina. He's asking about the ninth book and what hints I can give you about it. I have a title for it, it's called, "Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone." And that comes from a -- thank you. It comes from a bit of beekeeping lure, which is common to the Celtic countries, but you find it also in other parts of Europe and America. And it's based on the idea that if you are a beekeeper, you tend to your hives every day. And since bees are social insects, they need to know what's going on in the community, not just their own hive. So you tell them the news of your community, who's come into the community, who's gone, who's been born, who's died, what's going on, because if you don't and the bees find out, they'll be angry and swarm and fly away, and you won't have any honey. So you always go and tell the bees what's going on. Now, as to who is gone, or where they are going, and when or if ever they will come back, that we don't know. It may apply to more than one person, I can tell you that much. [Laughs] >> That was the other question was who is going to tell the bees? >> Diana Gabaldon: Who is going -- >> Yes. [Laughter] >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes; well, I don't know. Clara's usually the beekeeper, but, you know, on the other hand, if it's her that's going, she would be telling someone else to go tell the bees that I've gone. Yes; on the other hand, there might be someone else and she's telling the bees about them. Or as I say, there might be more than one person. [Laughter] Yes. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, Diana. >> Diana Gabaldon: Hi. >> I just want -- I'm sorry, I'm short. For one thing, I want to say congratulations on being a granny. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, thank you so much. Yes; I am a new grandmother. [Laughter] >> But I also wanted to ask how much were you aware of early American history of what was going on, you know, in terms of colonial times, the American Revolution and so forth before you actually started approaching that? >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, how much did I know about early American history and revolutionary times before I began writing the books? >> Yes. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, just what you would learn in elementary school in the 1960s, yes; yes. >> So was there anything -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Which is a heck of a lot more than you'd learn now, I'll tell you. [Laughter] >> Well, it depends on location. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. >> But how much -- did anything surprise you that you came across? >> Diana Gabaldon: Did anything surprise me from the things that I learned later? >> Yes. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, yes, all kinds of things, but -- yes, I'm trying to think of anything in particular. Well, I know more about George Washington's false teeth now than I did. They weren't necessarily all made of hippopotamus, I agree, but a lot of them were. Yes; no you learn all kinds of interesting things like General Nathaniel Greene was a Quaker by profession, which makes it rather odd that he became a revolutionary or a general. But it turns out that as he was growing up, his father disliked books. And he forbade his son to read because he thought books would separate you from God, you know, by distracting you and so forth. And young Nathaniel didn't bide with this so he snuck off and read anyway. But this vision, you know, made him decide that he didn't want to be a Quaker anymore if they were so narrow-minded not to read books. Now, of course, they weren't all, but his father was. Anyway, so that's what caused him to go off and read. And what he was reading was military history. And he became more and more engaged in this and finally, he said, "All right, I'm not a Quaker anymore. I'm going to take up military." And he was a very good general. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: You're welcome. Yes, yes. >> Hi, Diana. >> Diana Gabaldon: Hi. >> I'm from Havelock, North Carolina. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, very nice. >> And I know you've been there because you went for the 300th anniversary of New Bern. And my question to you is how did you come across wanting to have Jamie and Clare Frazier go to Frazier Ridge in North Carolina? Why that spot; why there? And the other part of the question is if the filming keeps continuing, if you could have them film in New Bern, North Carolina, [laughter] because we would love to have them there by Triumph Palace to be able to do some of that. And because in Scotland, you just don't experience the heat you do in eastern North Carolina, so. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes, yes, yes. Yes; the question was first how did I come to set Frazier's Ridge in North Carolina? And the second is can I arrange to have part of the show filmed in North Carolina for the next season? Yes; that unfortunately is beyond my control. And part of it is that they have this huge studio in Cumbernauld, which is just outside Glasgow, which expands with each season, so it's immense. And they do all of the indoor shooting, and I guess some of the outdoor shooting actually within this facility. So they're not going to go build another one in North Carolina is the bottom line. Excuse me. As for the outer stuff, there are parts of Scotland that can be used, but they also have another European location that they can use for the more forested parts of things. The thing also is that "Outlander" is not a union show; you don't have to be in the UK, whereas you pretty much do need to be in the States. And so just the legalities involved in that, plus the taxes, plus the idea of moving a production that size all the way to North Carolina, no, not happening. But as for why I set them there, that's where the Scots went after Colladen. The -- many people were transported. Many people left voluntarily because there was nothing left for them in Scotland. Excuse me, I've had a cold all week, so there we go. Yes, all right; so about half the Scottish immigrants went up straight up the coast to Prince Edward island and Nova Scotia. So it's called Nova Scotia and New Scotland, that's where they settled. But the other half went straight up the Cape Fear River -- that's okay, I've got a drink, thank you; went straight up the Cape Fear River and into the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, because the mountains reminded them of Scotland. And so that's why Frazier's Ridge is within ten miles of Boon, but I couldn't tell you in which direction. Yes; yes, yes. >> Hi. My name's Karen. I am an [inaudible]. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. [Laughs] >> I write for the "Outlander" cast blog. >> Diana Gabaldon: Lovely. >> So this question is for -- on behalf of everybody. And I am going to blatantly steal something from the first session. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. >> And then I'm going to add my own to that. >> Diana Gabaldon: Okay. >> How much time do you spend thinking, that was the question. And where do you do it best? >> Diana Gabaldon: How much time do I spend thinking, and where do I do it best? I think all the time; I mean, yes. If you mean about books, I still think about books all the time, it's just in the back of my mind. And, you know, I'm doing other things, of course, but every once in a while, I would just get an idea and it pops into place. And as my husband says, "You have that goofy look on your face again. Are you having book ideas?" And I say, "Yes." So I mean, it's -- I don't have like regimented hours during which I think, you know. And likewise, I don't have a place as far as the writing goes. All I need is a laptop computer and I'm not there, I'm within the book so I can actually do it anywhere. I've done it in halls like this, and in airports and, you know, pretty much anywhere. >> Well, thank you for all of that. >> Diana Gabaldon: You're welcome. >> For the kilts, and for that visual about up against the wall in a minute. [Laughter] Thank you, thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Feel free. [Laughs] Thank you. And you; yes. >> Hi. I wrote my question down because that's usually how I go. Where did you get the idea of giving Briana and Roger's daughter, Mandy, the ability to sense Jim's location, and will that be built upon in the new book? >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, where did I get the idea of allowing Mandy, Roger and Briana's daughter, to sense Jimmy's location, and will that be used in future books? Well, plainly it will, yes, but as to where it was, it was just there. Excuse me. Yes, I mean, she just said that, "I can feel him." And I was thinking, "Oh, well, of course you can." You know, and I wondered if it was reciprocal, which it turned out to be, you know, that they both can. The hypothesis here would be that we know that the ability to time travel is genetic. And well, I mean, me think about it, how many of you can roll your tongues? You just go [makes sound], okay you go, okay. If you can't do it, then you can't do it. That's all there is to it. You can think about it all you want, but you can't do it. And the same thing with time travel, if you are genetically endowed to do that, you can do that, otherwise you can't. But anyway so I assume that you must have one gene to time travel. Briana has one gene from Claire. But, you know, genes, as we know, occur in a paired alleles. So what if we know Ray has one, Roger may have one, he may have two. But either way, Jimmy and Mandy have the potential of having two. So I said, "What if they both do have two?" So that gives you the ability to, you know, steer through time and they both seem to be somewhat more flexible time travelers than their parents. But what if it also allows you to recognize other time travelers? And I was thinking so they can recognize each other. You see, the thing is they can recognize their parents as well as Mandy does when she tells them where Roger is. So they have this ability to recognize another time traveler when they see them, rather than wait, and that may come into play somewhere else. >> Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. Yes. >> Hello. I'd like to -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Hi. >> Thank you, Miss Gabaldon, for all of your work, in particular in light of what Mr. McCullough mentioned about bringing history to life. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. >> I would -- especially in my own family, I would say that my now college-aged daughter found no joy in history -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, wonderful; yes. >> Until she read your books. So that brings it to home. And I would like to in honor of her ask -- because she is an aspiring writer, how do you work through writer's blocks? >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, how do you work through writer's block? It's real simple, but also horrifying, you just keep writing anyway. I mean, really just keep putting down words, and eventually it will let go. Now, I can expand on that a little bit. But I know it may not work for her because it has to do with the way my brain is wired up. I think I have a rather beneficent form of ADHD in that I can't concentrate on something for more than about 20 minutes unless it's really engaging. But what I learned to do early on was to switch rapidly from one project to the next. I usually work on three, four, five, six projects at once. So I'll begin, say, with a grant proposal, which is the most horrible thing to write, and I would get, you know, two-thirds of the way down the page, it would stick. Well, everybody gets stuck at some point, and they get up, go to the bathroom, get the drink, take the dog for a walk. Some of them don't come back, and that's why they don't finish their books. I couldn't do that because I had to keep getting paid. So I would come to the sticking point. And without stopping, I would pick up the next project on my software review pile, start the review. Then I'd check with the draft of the proposal, if it was still stuck, I would then pick up the scene I was working on for the novel, work on that until it got stuck. And so it would keep me circling through these things. And I would not get up. And so at the end of the night, I would end up, you know, with two pages of the grant proposal, and half of a software review, and maybe three-quarters of a finished scene, but I would have work. And so, you know, this is another thing you can do, you know, if you are stuck on what you're doing, do something else that also involves writing because those synapses keep working, and eventually something comes loose. It all comes -- if everything else fails, work on what you're supposed to be working on, but just put down anything that comes into your mind that's connected where they don't try to, you know, organize or plot, or anything like that, just, you know, let the words come and then it -- usually it comes unstuck within a couple of paragraphs. >> Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: You may have to do it more than one day in a row. >> My daughter Amelia thanks you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Sure thing, thank you. Yes; yes. >> Hi. I want to thank you personally. I know everyone here feels the same way. I didn't know about your books until I watched the television show, and then I've read all of them. And it's just like opened up this whole world to me, so thank you, thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Wonderful; thank you. >> I see that you're a consultant on the show. And it says, you know, what -- how do you feel like when they're -- like I know they have to vary things from the book to do advance it into the show, but how -- I mean, I know it's an open-ended question, but how do you feel about, you know, changes they make? Do they consult you about them or -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. How do I feel about changes made by the show to the original story? Well, they pretty much have to change it because they've only got ten hours to work with, and they're big books. The other thing is that, you know, weekly television, it's episodic, meaning that you have one hour, and that hour has to have its own little dramatic arc that comes to a dramatically satisfying end. Well, the book is not arranged in neat little dramatic arcs. So what they do is they take the book apart. They call it "breaking script," and then they take pieces out of this broken pile and they reassemble them into those little climactic things. So in the process, they lose some things. They have to invent some other things to get from point A to point B. But the overall impression is still that of the original book. I think they do a beautiful job with that. There are occasional spots where they -- where one scriptwriter will have, to my mind, completely misinterpret a character. And on those occasions, I will point that out with some force. But yes -- [laughter] I don't do it often. But once that bit sorted out with something really -- anyway I brought back and I said, "I don't use language bad enough to describe how much I hate this." [Laughter] But, you know, I don't do that often. And when I do, they're inclined to listen to me. And they did do something about it. I mean, normally, they're very good about, you know, soliciting my comments and paying attention to what I think. And you know, I don't make a lot of adverse comments. Usually, I'll say, "This is great. I love this. This is wonderful. I would have never thought of that; terrific." But, you know, every so often, I'll say, "Look, you know, if -- I'll tell you what, honestly, truly, you cannot fatally cut someone's throat without having a lot of blood because," you know, I got back this footage and there was this just sort of gently oozing, you know, wound but no blood on the clothes or anything like that. I said, "Look, you can't do that. If you're going to kill someone, you're slicing at least one of the corroded artery; blood is spray everywhere. I mean, you've got to have more blood." And so, you know -- you see, they're not going to reshoot scenes just to satisfy my technical things. But the thing is there's this thing called "VFX," which means "special effect," and they could do things. Frequently, I'll see notes on the rough footage that they send me that said "VFX, add more blood," and so I know they can do that. And so I'll say, "Look, add more blood, lots more blood, and we'll see how that works." But yes anyway, they listen to me and nine times out ten, they'll do something in response. The tenth time, they'll tell me why that's impossible, you know, the logistics just don't let them do this or that, it's too expensive, et cetera. >> Thank you very much. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. Yes, yes. >> Hi, Diana. Thank you. I wanted to let you know that my family had an episode -- not an episode, my first granddaughter, unbeknownst to her mother prenatally had serious health defects -- >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, I'm so sorry. >> And only lived 35 hours. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh. >> I warned my daughter about reading "Dragonfly on Amber," and she did read it, and she did watch. Faith Katz's [phonetic] performance was amazing. >> Diana Gabaldon: She was. >> And, you know, your writing helped us through that period of time. So when you announced that you were going to be a grandmother, I prayed for you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Well, thank you so much. >> I prayed for your granddaughter. I prayed for your granddaughter. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. >> I helped [inaudible] as well. I want to know how does being a grandmother -- or does it, impact your writing from here going forward? How does it impact your life, and how does it impact your writing? >> Diana Gabaldon: [Laughs] Well, I don't know, I've only been a grandmother for six weeks; I haven't written that much yet. [Laughter] >> But it's the six best weeks of your life, I know. [Laughs] >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes, well, see, Claire has been a grandmother for a lot longer than I have. But, you know, I have had children. You know, I know what it's like to deal with children, both my own and others and so forth. So you know, you use as much of your own experience as you have. You mentioned Katrina and her fabulous performance in "Dragonfly on Amber," you know, as a pregnant woman and losing the baby and all that. And she wrote to me ahead of time, and she said, "Can you tell me what it's like to be pregnant, because I never have been," and so forth. And so, you know, I just did a brain dump for her and, you know, told her everything I knew about that and so forth. And I have been fortunate enough never to experience a stillbirth, but I have talked to people who have, and also the medical people who attend them. So I told her what I knew from that angle as well. She just did a fabulous job with it. >> She did. Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes; thank you so much. Yes, yes. >> Hi. My favorite way to procrastinate my own writing is by doing research, going to national archives and reading letters, and things like that. And I said, "Oh, I'm working on my novel by doing this." But I'm really not writing my novel. And you are such a historically detailed and generally detailed writer. And I'm sure that your background helps you be more regimented in that. But I wondered what your approach is to researching, and then integrating the research, and keeping going with that schedule you described, while not sacrificing your eye for detail. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes; well that is a problem that I noticed with people who are writing historical fiction, which is, you know, you get so tangled up in the research that you never actually write the book. I know people have been writing their novel for ten years and they've never put down a word; they're just doing research. Yes, research is fun, and it's much less work than writing. No; I am rather fortunate in the way that my brain works, which is in this very scattershot way. So I do the research and the writing concurrently. You know, I'll be working on a scene, then I come to something I need to know. Well, I go to my research collection. I've got about 2200 books on, you know, early -- or on Scotland and early America, and so forth. And, you know, or I'll go to the Internet to look up, you know, a historical character that I'm using. And I'll say "MH," and it will show me what, you know, Tom Payne looked like, that sort of stuff, and I'll read stuff. And anyway something in there -- it will -- I'll find what I needed to go on writing the scene, but I'll also find something else that simulates another scene, and I'll think, "Ah." And so I'll immediately start writing that one down on a separate document, you know, just a quick sketch of whatever. And so I mean, the research just integrates itself basically. I put in what I need to know, and the research tells me all this other stuff that I didn't know I needed to know, but there it is. [Laughs] >> That's very helpful. Thank you so much. >> Diana Gabaldon: Sure; yes, yes. >> Okay; you are my rock star. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. >> I am your number one fan. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you so much. I guess we have two minutes. >> I love so much about you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes. >> One thing I wanted to ask you, though, okay I hit 50 and wrote the novel. So I'm done with the novel and I've got friends going independently published, others telling me to try to go the query letter and the mainstream publishing. What made -- I know you did the CompuServe, but what -- was it your friend that -- is that what garnered you -- like directed you to go that direction with -- >> Diana Gabaldon: No; independent -- it's about a question about independent publishing versus mainstream publishing. Independent publishing didn't exist back in the day; it was not a question. But given the option, definitely go for mainstream publishing to start with. It's too complex for me to deal with here, but I'll talk to you later if you'd like. >> Oh, that would be awesome. >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes; and we have exactly two minutes, so I'm sorry for the rest of the people who have been standing in line. But I can take that question. Yes. >> Hi. I'll be quick. Thanks so much for the stories. I was just wondering in all your stories, do you ever regret any choices that you might have made? And specifically, would you have chosen another path for Murtagh? >> Diana Gabaldon: For who? >> Murtagh. >> Diana Gabaldon: Oh, Murtagh. Yes; do I ever regret ever killing people in my books, essentially, was the question. [Laughter] Well, see, I don't kill people, they die. I mean, in fact, I frequently go out of my way to try not to kill them. I really did. In "Written In my Own Heart's Blood" there's a very shattering death in that one, and I was thinking, "Surely, there's some other way." But no, there wasn't. You know, once I heard that crack, you know, I was thinking, "Yes, he's gone, yes." But yes, and you know, I just can't change those. But no, I don't plan them. So, you know, sometimes, I regret that someone is gone. But, you know, Murtagh, you know, died at Culloden and part of the -- and because he died, but part of the effect of that was, you know, that we are sensible of a personal loss which you need to have. You know, if Jaime is surviving, which he was, you know, we need to lose someone that we care about, you know? >> Thanks so much. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you, yes. And one more person, yes, yes. >> Oh, yay, thank you very much, Diana. My question actually has specifically to do with the "Outlander" books. And I think it's in book 5, Neoweni [phonetic] tells Claire that when her hair is all white, that's when she'll be her most powerful. And really I'm just wondering how white is Claire's hair right now, and can we expect even more powerful [laughter] achievements? >> Diana Gabaldon: Yes; no, Claire doesn't have a mirror at this point in it, and someone mentions that to her. And so she asked her granddaughter, she said, you know, "What color is my hair? Is my hair brown or white?" And Mandy looks at her and says, "Grandma," say, "it's rindled." So that's what it is, it's a mixture of brown, silver, white, et cetera. So she's not quite there yet, but we have two books to go. >> Thank you; thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Anyway, yes that's all the questions we have time for. >> Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: Thank you. [Inaudible]. >> Thank you. >> Diana Gabaldon: It was very nice. ^M00:56:04 [ Applause ] ^M00:56:12 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.