I will literally read anything, regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction, as long as it's well written.
Three of the principal cast members of 'Outlander' have come out publically for 'Yes': Sam Heughan, Graham MacTavish and Grant O'Rourke. And the 'Yes' proponents are on fire: idealistic, hopeful, inspired by the idea of change and of democratic self-determination.
Some time later, long after 'Voyager' was published, I came across the Dunbonnet in another reference, and it gave an expanded version, and it told me the Dunbonnet's name - which was James Fraser.
Eight was about the age I was when I realized that people actually produced books, they didn't just spring out of the library shelves.
The Internet has improved a lot in the last few years, but still, you wouldn't want to depend on Web sources for historical analysis. There's just something hard to beat about a book.
When I turned 35, I thought, 'Mozart was dead at 36, so I set the bar: I'm going to start writing a book on my next birthday.' I thought historical fiction would be easiest because I was a university professor and know my way around a library, and it seemed easier to look things up than make them up.
At one point, some years ago, a nice gentleman had it in mind to do 'Outlander The Musical.'
When I am at home writing, I have all the power. I am God. But TV is a polytheistic universe.
Back in the day, when I was a university professor, I used to teach a class in Human Anatomy and Physiology. This class was popular with the football players, who all took it under the tragic misapprehension that it would be easy.
I have friends who are writers who have had movies made of their books, and they are almost uniformly horrified about what's been done - or, at least, dissatisfied.
Oh, 'Pandaemonium', by Chris Brookmyre! Just fabulous - such a layered, beautifully structured, engaging, intelligent book. I love all Chris's stuff, but this was remarkable.
There are always people screeching and upset that I did this or didn't do that. Basically, they're upset that I didn't rewrite an earlier book they particularly liked.
In a great many stories that deal with time travel, there's usually somebody who knows how time travel works. They lay out the rules.
Whenever you're dealing with something that's difficult to describe, that you can't get across to someone in a sound bite, it sounds like the normal default is to pick what's easiest, and in the case of fiction written by women, fiction involving women, fiction involving any sort of relationship, the word that comes to mind is 'romance.'
When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere.
It's worth noting that at the time of the American Revolution, no sane person would have given two cents for its success.
I've never been willing to commit to more than one at a time, because I just don't know - I don't plan the books out ahead of time. So I have no idea how much ground we'll cover.
