Season 5 of the TV series Outlander started last weekend. I’m crazy about the show and a long-time reader of the books on which it is based. My husband watches it with me — he likes the show and is good-natured about my outbursts during viewing (we have to pause it a lot and occasionally rewind). Most of my friends gave up on the show in season 3, but even when more of them were watching it, no one was interested in engaging with me in endless recaps, book comparisons, and general prattle. (Surprising, I know.) I have filled the gap with Outlander-related podcasts.
Podcasts allow me to listen while other people recap, book-compare, and prattle, and I can yell back in hearty agreement or disapproval while driving my car to work. It’s not perfect, but it has allowed me to fangirl while keeping my real-life friendships intact. In years past, Twitter was a great place to engage with other fans who shared my weird intensity for the books and show, but I’ve drifted away from Twitter and I find I enjoy life more without it. I don’t want to go back, not even for #Outlander.
This past week I’ve been feeling the lack of fan outlet and community more than in previous seasons. For sure part of that is not being on Twitter. Part of it is that my favorite Outlander podcast is no longer in production. Mostly, it’s that I’ve always wanted to engage with this content and put my voice out there about it, and enjoying other people’s thoughts on it isn’t quite enough. I need to yap yappity yap yap about it myself.
Way back when, I had two brief stints in radio. During high school I was a co-host of “Teen Talk” on a local AM station. (We took alternating weeks and I was definitely the lesser of the two hosts. My weeks were not good.) I also had a short, unsuccessful job with my college radio station. These experiences left me appreciating radio, if not feeling good about my own performance in it. I can imagine myself podcasting one day, but today is not that day. I do not have the time to learn to podcast properly, nor the money to buy podcasting equipment.
What I have at my disposal right now is this blog, a Starz streaming subscription, and the Outlander series of books. So I may as well blog about it. I think it’ll make me happy.
The 10 or so of you who faithfully read my less-than-annual personal blog posts here may not appreciate this diversion into time-travel historical romance, but that’s OK. You can pretend I’m not writing as usual. “Oh,” you can say to yourselves, if the topic ever crosses your mind, “I guess Holly hasn’t written anything for a long time.” That would be the status quo.
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