Outlander author compares her success with deadlines to George R.R. Martin’s

More from the Television Critics Association winter press tour: Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander books, was asked if, given that George R.R. Martin recently admitted to being behind on finishing The Winds of Winter, she would have trouble meeting the deadline for the ninth entry in her series. According to Vulture, her response drew “murmurs from the audience.”

“Unlike George, I write no matter where I am or what else I’m doing,” she said. Insert murmurs. “He admits it himself, he likes to travel and he can’t write when he travels. That’s just the way he works.”

Gabaldon went on to say that “everybody’s got their own writing mechanisms.” By the sound of it, her’s are pretty conducive to a massive output.

"[Even with] two full-time jobs and three small children, I wrote in any spare minutes that I had, so I’ve kept that work ethic, so to speak. I do have a couple of hours in the middle of night that I can count on when things are quiet, and that’s my main writing time. I will write at intervals during the day. I write when I travel, and so forth."

Now, a couple of publications have characterized this comment as a “fight” or “jab,” but I doubt it was meant as a criticism. It sounds like Gabaldon was just illustrating the difference in their styles, and maybe didn’t choose her words as precisely as she could have. After all, Martin and Gabaldon are good friends. They’ve appeared on panels together, worked on an anthology together, and are known to share breakfast and swap gifts. I think this is pretty innocent.

But I’m also sure there are fans out there who wish Martin’s writing style was a little more like Gabaldon’s, intense as it sounds. Here’s how she describes her own “internal deadline.”

"Eventually we get down to my deadline, which is when the book is talking to me so strongly I’m not doing anything else. Stuff just goes through me, I’m not doing anything else. Luckily this only lasts two or three months or else I would die."