I’m doing an AuthorChat online with Brenda Novak this evening–5:30 PM PDT/8:30 PM EDT. come and join us!
I can’t get the widget with the “join” link to show up here, and don’t have time to mess with it. So–for the sake of convenience–here is the link to the widget. See you online tonight!
Diana:
How about an excerpt? That yearning for your writing is building up . . . and a new excerpt shared would relieve some of the pain. I don’t care which book in process it comes from…{g}
Hello – I have just finished the last book about Jamie and Claire, “An Echo In The Bone”; when will I be able to find out the next phase of their life.
Unfortunately for me I will not be able to participate in the on-line chat but would appreciate a reply to my email if anyone has that info.
thanks, A very satisfied and hungry fan. Wini
Uh….something didn’t post correctly
Hello
This morning I finished “Echo in the Bone” and I am now not sure what to do with myself! I started to read the series last July when My daughter was 6 weeks old and have now reached the end of the road – for now. It’s been 5 months that I have not gone a day without reading at least a section of a chapter or locked myself in the bathroom to escape my family just for a few moments time to read! (really I’m not neglectful, just sometimes I deserve it.) I cannot wait to see what happens to William, Jamie, Claire and the crew. I am in love with the series and I am grateful for your work. Slainte!
Meghan
When will the eighth book in the outlander series be done?
Dear Carrie–
I don’t know. When it’s finished, I reckon. {g}
–Diana
Loved the online chat! Thanks.
Diana
I was so disappointed to have missed the chat session. I just finished ‘Echo in the Bone’ and am looking forward to the next book. You are a gifted storyteller and I am so grateful to have found your work. After all of the books, the characters are still enjoyable. Thank you.
Also disappointed to have missed the online chat as have been trying to compose a letter to Diana for so long. Thoroughly enjoy how the characters fill my life and ” I have questions ” oh so many questions but am loath to take Diana’s time as I want to imagine her attatched to her keyboard happily typing more pages for me to read LOL
Why don’t you ask other blog contributors.
I am certain most would be only too happy to help answer some of your questions. I expect everyone reading this blog is here to maintain a link with the works of Diana, and would welcome any Diana related dialogue. Give it a try: )
Also, if you have a really good read of Diana’s blog you will find answers to most of your author related questions. Eg; I have noticed that barely a week goes by where poor Diana is not asked when the next book is coming out. Diana typically and sweetly addresses that question time and time again referring readers to her blog.
I am certain that none of us want to take Diana away from her writing, and would love the opportunity to talk, talk, talk Diana related matters. Your answers are probably out there!
Warmest regards from Australia
Karol,
If you want to learn more about Diana’s work, check out her recent speech at the Library of Congress book festival, available on YouTube (you have to have the entire link copied below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LgSEkCuTEg
There are lots of other videos on line that show Diana talking about her work on her YouTube Channel. Click on the Youtube icon at the top right of this web page, under “Follow Diana Online.”
There are also some free talks by Diana on iTunes that explore different Outlander and authoring topics. Go to the iTunes store and google her name to find them.
-Loretta
I am so in love with these books! My sister and nieces and I are faithful readers of the Outlander series. I am so looking forward to the movie or movies. Do you happen to know more about when it will be out and who is playing Jamie and Claire? Thank you so much for the world of Jamie and Claire as I am taken away to Scotland and there love affair.
I have now read all million words for about the third time through! Well, actually, I started this time around with the Outlandish Companion, and will get back into Echo tonight….maybe that’s about a million words. Love them all, except for the consequences of Roger’s meeting with Morag. Yikes! Can’t read through THAT again. But I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these stories, and characters, and cannot wait for the next installment. Diana’s writing is wonderful, but I so enjoy the Jamie and Claire stories more than the Lord John ones!
I love them all too and have read each one more than once but skip the consequence of Roger’s meeting with Morag again. I listen to the audio books and fast forwarded that twice. There are some tough scenes but that one made me put the book away for a day.
I’m a newbie here. My friend turned me on to the Outlander series a couple of months ago. Don’t know how I missed it over these long years, but glad I didn’t have to wait for the next book to come out like the rest of you have? We were wandering aimlessly over the Highlands looking for our ancestors (who also immigrated to the East Coast territories, between the Rebellion and the second go round with the English in 1812) . . . particularly Inverness and Fort William 3 years ago. Had I known about these books beforehand, the trip would have been notably different. Besides the ‘change of reality’ from the sudden death of our vibrant, tall, gorgeous, red-headed 21 year old daughter, these books have gone deeper and meant more to me than I can express. I don’t know how these could ever be made into a movie or mini-series (producers have a tendancy to screw great writings up for everybody), I have a recent suggestion of Alex O’Loughlin (Hawaii 5 0?) with a red haired makeover that might possibly fill the visual of Jamie done over time? Id anyone could do it, I think HE could? Just a thought! If Diana reads these blogs . . . which this will be the first of such a format for me as I’ve had nothing interesting enough to do such a technological or emotional thing over . . . . I wonder? WHERE in the hell did YOU come from, and would I be off base to believe that you are channeling information from parts unknown? I think I have officially joined the ranks of the ‘hooked’. May I also add that for my own peace . . . I hope Jamie and Claire find SOME before these are all over? Even though there may be none had in life for some of us? As a contemporary, Kathryn
Australian actor Alex O’ Loughlin (Hawaii 5 O) would be a wonderful Jamie! The perfect blend of ‘tough enough’ for the masculine warrior scenes and ‘vulnerable and sensitive’ enough for the romance.
I find it very interesting that most of the contemporary ‘possible’ Jamies such as Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Sam Worthington (Avatar) are all Australian actors.
Their Scots dialect coaches would have to be top notch though. Cheers from Janet in Australia : )
Alex O’Loughlin is exactly who I have pictured for Jamie from the beginning of the series! He’s been a perfect cast in the movie in my mind.
And I just reread your post…picking up on something I had missed the first time. I’m terribly sorry about your daughter.
Thank You JB10. It’s been 4 years. You’d think the loss of a child softens with time, but we’re still waiting for any of that to happen. I should have immediately taken refuge into my ‘comfort zone’ inside a novel or series, but I couldn’t seem to focus on much of anything. Out of all the books people were trying to throw at me over these years, I finally settled on Outlander. We went to some other lifes – ‘home’, among other things, running to Scotland and Ireland in the process of trying to outrun the pain, but I so wished now that I’d either read the books when they were shoved at me, or waited to go over again til after I’d read them. They’ve been a great diversion for me, and I’m glad I can escape somewhere I want to be, without having to climb on a plane to do it? And I so appreciate your acknowledgement. I married a modern version of Jamie, and our daughter Brandi would have been Brianna to a “T”. Like I said . . . it’s one of those mysteries ‘where’ Diana has tapped into her characters and stories. I’m going to figure out how to contact her about where the song about Jamie Telfer came from . . . we have them all through our geneology, passed along as well to our existing family members. (We have Alexanders as well.) I was just thrilled and elated we showed up in name, as well as people and histories in her work. I’m glad Outlander became first in my effort to ‘re-enter’ the world of feeling something again. I’d rather have someone else’s stories than my own . . . as grevious and real as either gets and can be? Any suggestions on how I go about contacting Diana about where she may have found Jamie Telfer’s Song . . . while I’m learning to use a blogsite? While making an effort to ‘reach out’ to the world again, this has become very interesting indeed! Thank you for making this connection.
Hello Janet in Australia,
Not sure how these blogs work . . . or really how to go about them. I’m glad to hear others are on my same wavelength? There’s connectivity here in responding to you in particular. We had a lifelong trip planned to Queensland arranged when our daughter passed. We got on the plane a couple of weeks after in a daze. It’s like she left as to not disturb our trip over. Needless to say, we tried to embrace the country and our experience there for two weeks. It was further distressing to realize at the time 2007 – what a terrible draught you were all going through . . . at the time . . . now there’s too much water? It was a wonderful respite for us . . . regardless. The people we met made the trip for us. Australia and Australians in particular will always be precious to us. Enlightenment when it was sorely needed. Thanks for your response . . . it seems very typical coming from who you are! Kathryn
What you do when you finish the last one is start to read the whole series all over again! I am on the 4th Outlander book now and am enjoying reading them the second time around more than the first time. There is foreshadowing that you never caught and details you miss as you devour the books the first time. My 73 year old mother has read them all and has started reading Outlander again. We usually spend part of our daily conversations discussing the books. I have tried to read some other books, but just don’t enjoy them. It is like drinking fine wine reading the Outlander books and other books seem like cheap beer in comparison. I have turned all my friends and folks I have met on the plane onto these books. I can’t wait for the next one. Diana really left us with a cliff hanger!
Diana, thank you so much for writing these wonderful books!
I love reading all the info on this website from time to time. No, I’m not asking when the next book is coming out (aren’t you glad?)….I’m just happy there will BE one, and I’ll be patient. I’m just writing to tell you about what the person said who introduced me to these books several years ago….she said that I would enjoy Outlander, and that Jamie will make any woman’s husband, significant other, etc., pale in comparison. I got a good laugh out of that, but after reading that first book….I do agree! I think I’m in love! I’ve read all the books….twice….and will continue to read them over and over and over…… Thanks, Diana, for a wonderful way to lose oneself in reading!
Echo In The Bone was released in 2009. Since then Diana has released a cartoon book and an anniversary addition of Outlander. Why, instead of book eight, are we getting reused material? I am a dedicated fan, however that
dedication for an author can be tried, when no new material is offered.
Dear Ruth–
Well, it takes me roughly three years to write one of the big OUTLANDER novels. The release time between books is actually somewhat _more_ than that, because of the demands of book-touring and promotional Stuff all over the world, all of the time. {g} Ergo, you wouldn’t be getting Book Eight any sooner if I _didn’t_ do THE EXILE (and as for the 20th anniversary OUTLANDER, that was entirely the publisher’s notion, though I think it will be a lovely book), or the various shorter pieces that appear in anthologies in between (there have been at least three novellas/short stories released within the last year).
I.e., it isn’t a question “getting reused material instead of Book Eight.” a) You aren’t getting Book Eight until I’ve written it, plainly. b) THE EXILE isn’t either “a cartoon book” or “reused material.” You may or may not LIKE it, but it’s a new aspect of the OUTLANDER story, and surely I have a right to do things that I think are fun? c) I imagine the publisher thought that some of the readers would appreciate having the 20th-anniversary edition to entertain them during the unavoidable gap prior to releasing Book Eight. And d) the readers obviously have complete freedom to not buy something they don’t want; it hasn’t got anything to do with personal dedication.
Now. I normally do work on multiple projects, because it keeps me from having writer’s block. For the last several months, I’ve been working simultaneously on Book Eight and on SCOTTISH PRISONER–this being an interesting book, in which the story is shared between Lord John Grey and Jamie Fraser; it kind of ties the Lord John series into the main one. I’ll be finished with the manuscript of SCOTTISH PRISONER in another couple of weeks, and it will _probably_ be out this November. 2011. So you will have had at least one book _every year_ for three years running (not counting the anniversary edition). I’ve never done that before in my entire career. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get Book Eight in 2012, because–like all the other OUTLANDER novels–it’s long, it’s complex, and it takes a lot of time, thought, research, and engineering. But you will get it, and I hope you enjoy it when you do.
–Diana
Diana,
I loved your last response. I too consider myself a recent fan of the past two years and LOVED the EXILE. What a very wonderful and expressive ways of sharing a visual of the characters that have been painted so beautifully with your words. I especially love learning more about Murtaug, the most self sacrificing characters in all the stories. I thought Kenneth was going to surface in your next story until the end. I have also enjoyed the Lord John Series and found The Brotherhood of the Blade great background to help understand who Percy was.
In addition to sharing how much I have enjoyed all your Outlander and related stories, I have had a question I have been anxious to ask but too curious to refrain. I am sure I am not the only fan to catch this but wonder is a genuine error or is there some explanation. In the Voyager there is a retelling of a moment in Claire’s marriage to Frank that is contradicted in a later story (I believe in the Fiery Cross). In the scene when Claire and Jamie are trying not to hear Fergus making love to his wife as she is in labor with their child, Claire recalls she and Frank making love before the birth of Brianna. Yet in the Voyager, Claire shares her first kiss with Frank since her return when Brianna was 3 months old. Sharing how they had not touched since she came back through the stones. Did I find an error or is there something more to explain this inconsistancy?
Your curious fan,
Eileen
Dear Eileen–
Um. People don’t always kiss when making love. {g}
–Diana
I absolutely love your Outlander series and after finishing Echo in the Bone, have started over for the second time! I can’t wait to read book 8. Thank you so much for all your hard work put into these books.
I feel like Jamie, Claire, Brianna, Roger and all are part of my family! I also married a modern version of Jamie and from the beginning thought my husband must be part Scottish! I recently did a family history and it turns out that Simon Fraser, Lord Lovet the 11th is his 6th great grandfather! Who knew?
Please don’t ever stop writing!
A fan always,
Katie