The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [3]
I spent half an hour checking out the software support forum, and then—finding myself with several hours of free connect time in hand—set out to see what else might be available in this fascinating new online world. This being the mid-1980s, there was not nearly so much online as there is today (there was no World Wide Web; only the subscription services, such as CompuServe, GEnie, and Prodigy. America Online didn’t even exist yet). Still, among the resources available then (on CompuServe) was a group called the Literary Forum.
This was a fascinating group of individuals who all liked books. That was the only common denominator; the group included people of every conceivable background and profession—among them, a few published writers, a good many aspiring writers, and a great many nonwriters who simply liked to discuss books and writing. Finding this congenial gathering to be the ideal social life for a busy person with small children—something like a twenty-four-hour electronic cocktail party—I promptly signed up with CompuServe, and began logging on to the Literary Forum several times a day, to read and exchange posted messages with the kindred spirits there.
At this point in my life, I had a full-time job with the university, I was writing part-time for the computer press, and I had three children, ages six, four, and two. I’m not sure quite why I thought this was the ideal time to begin writing my long-intended novel—mania induced by sleep deprivation, perhaps—but I did.
I didn’t intend to show this putative novel to anyone. It wasn’t for publication; it was for practice. I had come to the conclusion—based on experience—that the only real way of learning to write a novel was probably to write a novel. That’s how I learned to write scientific articles, comic books, and software reviews, after all. Why should a novel be different?
If I didn’t mean to show it to anyone, it wouldn’t matter whether what I wrote was bad or not, so I needn’t feel self-conscious in the process of writing it; I could just concentrate on the writing. And, if it was just for practice, I needn’t worry too much about what kind of novel it was. I made only two rules for myself: One, I would not give up, no matter how bad I thought it was, until I had finished the complete book, and two, I would do my level best in the writing, at all times.
So … what kind of novel should this be? Well, I read everything, and lots of it, but perhaps more mysteries than anything else. Fine, I thought, I’d write a mystery.
But then I began to think. Mysteries have plots. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do plots. Perhaps I should try something easier for my practice book, then write a mystery when I felt ready for a real book.
Fine. What was the easiest possible kind of book for me to write, for practice? (I didn’t see any point in making things difficult for myself.)
After considerable thought, it seemed to me that perhaps a historical novel would be the easiest thing to try. I was a research professor, after all; I had a huge university library available, and I knew how to use it. I thought it seemed a little easier to look things up than to make them up—and if I turned out to have no imagination, I could steal things from the historical record.3
Okay. Fine. Where to set this historical novel? I have no formal background in history; one time or place would do as well as another.
Enter another accident. I rarely watch TV, but at the time I was in the habit of viewing weekly PBS reruns of Doctor Who (a British science-fiction serial), because it gave me just enough time to do my nails.4 So, while pondering the setting for my hypothetical historical novel, I happened to see one very old episode of Doctor Who featuring a “companion” of the Doctor’s—a young Scottish lad named Jamie MacCrimmon, whom the Doctor had picked up in 1745. This character wore a kilt, which I thought rather fetching, and demonstrated—in this particular episode5—a form of pigheaded male gallantry that I’ve always found endearing: the strong urge on the