Diana Gabaldon

I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together. ”

I work late at night. I'm awake and nobody bothers me. It's quiet and things come and talk to me in the silence. ”

I grew up in Flagstaff, and I still own my old family house up there, so I go up there a couple of times a month just to sit for a day or two and work without any kind of interruption, and I usually take a dinner break, and I'll watch two hours of DVD. ”

There's always a temptation, I think, among some historical writers to shade things toward the modern point of view. You know, they won't show someone doing something that would have been perfectly normal for the time but that is considered reprehensible today. ”

I stagger out of bed, take the dogs outside, and then I'll get a Diet Coke and a couple of dog biscuits and go upstairs. By the time I've consumed my Diet Coke and had a quick run through the morning email and Twitter feed, I will probably be compos mentis enough to work. ”

I don't plan the books ahead of time. It's not like Harry Potter. I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. ”

I read all the time. People ask, 'Do you read while you work?' And I say, 'I better.' I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can't go that long without reading. ”

The media is always looking for a story of one kind or another. ”

I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel. ”

I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel. How you carry a story in pictures is different than how you do it in text. ”