Angela Hickey's interview with Diana Gabaldon

Here's a two-part interview with Diana Gabaldon, by Angela Hickey of the Outlandish Hive. The first part is about the TV shows, both BLOOD OF MY BLOOD and OUTLANDER Season 8, and the second part is about the books and Diana's writing process. I thought Angela asked some great questions!

Note that Part 2 contains some discussion of Book 10 (A BLESSING FOR A WARRIOR GOING OUT) that excerpt-avoiders may want to skip over! In my comments below, I noted a few bits below that may contain spoilers.



Part 1 - BLOOD OF MY BLOOD and Season 8

18:07 - Diana said she would like to see SCOTTISH PRISONER on TV at some point, perhaps as a limited series. The idea being that because this story is half Jamie and half Lord John, it might bring in more fans than a (hypothetical!) series focusing on Lord John, which the people in charge of the TV adaptations don't seem interested in. I like this idea, even if it never actually happens.

About 20 minutes into Part 1: On the subject of whether there is any possibility that Book 10 might come out around the same time as Season 8, Diana said this:

Naturally the publisher would love to get it out as close to Season 8 as they can, but there's no way that it's going to be out in time to be published, packaged, etc., by "early 2026". It's not coming out before Season 8, let's put it that way.

I think we can take that as a definitive statement. It doesn't come as a surprise to me at all, given how long it takes to get through the many steps of the post-production process!



Part 2 - Book 10 and Diana's Writing Process

I loved Diana's explanation at the beginning of this part, about where the title, A BLESSING FOR A WARRIOR GOING OUT, comes from.

04:38 - On the shape of BLESSING, which Diana has described before as being like the aerial view of the eye of a hurricane:

There are several different storylines which [...] form a proper story arc, and so forth. But they overlap with the other storylines, and they intersect in some cases. And that's when you get this convergent look, like you get from the aerial picture of the eye of a hurricane, of all these different strands of cloud and rain and wind and all that. They're all circling around this sort of still center. Obviously we know what the still center is. This is Jamie and Claire, their relationship in the midst of that. All of these storylines are influenced by their presence, even though they're not included in all of the different storylines. That's essentially what I meant by that.

(Excerpt-avoiders should STOP at the end of this explanation and skip to around 13:00, to avoid spoilers! I don't read excerpts or #DailyLines, so I won't discuss them here.)

More interesting bits from Part 2:

13:20 - How has her writing process changed since she began writing OUTLANDER?

16:30 - Diana's reaction to the new Kristin Atherton narrations of the OUTLANDER audiobooks.

(Excerpt-avoiders should skip from 21:14 through 24:00, to avoid spoilers!)

24:03 - "If you could go back and give yourself advice before publishing Book 1, what would it be?" - interesting question, not one that I recall hearing before.

26:20 - Diana says she is "nowhere near" the Final Frenzy stage of BLESSING. As far as when the book might be finished, she said:

I'm not guaranteeing a date. This is not something I can do. Aside from my writing speed, all kinds of things happen.

Many thanks to Angela and Diana for a very interesting interview!