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6 months ago
23
She spent almost two decades creating an elaborate magical world beloved by millions of readers across the globe.
But JK Rowling has admitted that finally completing the Harry Potter series felt like a ‘bereavement’.
The Edinburgh-based author immersed herself in writing the novels and saw the ‘Potter phenomenon’ exceed all expectations to become the most popular children’s books of the modern era.
Ms Rowling first came upon the idea for Harry Potter, played in the films by Daniel Radcliffe, below, in 1990 while delayed on a train from Manchester to London.
Emotional: JK Rowling was both relieved and sad when she completed her books
Cafe society: The novelist often wrote in coffee shops in Edinburgh when still relatively unknown
In 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of what would be a seven book series was published. But when she completed the final book in 2007, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she said she felt both relief and a sense of loss.
The author now predicts the same feeling will affect her when she completes her series of books written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith about the private detective Cormoran Strike.
Ms Rowling said: ‘I lived a huge amount of my life in that world in a way no one else can.
‘Some of those 17 years had been quite traumatic for me, and this was a place I was escaping into.
‘So the idea I would never be able to escape there again was a bereavement.
In 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published
‘That said, to be very honest, I was on a certain level relieved it was over. I’d done what I set out to do, and the Potter phenomenon had become something no one could have predicted.
‘It sounds bizarre, but [after Potter] I felt, I’m free to fail, I’m free to write what I want, [even] if no one wants to read it.’
She told The Sunday Times that ideas would come to her at random ‘when you’re making gravy or something’ and that she suffers ‘real anxiety if the writing is not going right’. She said she has ‘made an accommodation with fame’ rather than enjoying it, but added: ‘I would be the first to say there are very nice aspects to it.
‘People walking up to you in the street and saying, you wrote my favourite book. That is a beautiful thing to hear.
‘That said, it was a bereavement. I know I’m going to feel the same way when I finish the Galbraith books. That’s going to be hard for different reasons because it’s been pure joy from start to finish.’ Writer’s block has only affected her once, when she ‘absolutely froze’ for a week while writing the second Harry Potter novel because the first had ‘overshot my wildest expectations’.
Ms Rowling also admitted: ‘I have master files on all these different characters. I have huge amounts of background just to keep myself orientated.’
But now her biggest challenge is thinking up names for the characters in the six stories she has lined up in her head, and relies on baby books to avoid offending people she has known in real-life.
She added: ‘I’ve now created so many characters, it’s a nightmare because every time I think of a surname, I’ve used it before.
‘So I have baby name books and surname books. You’ve got to be careful because if you use a surname and then remember you were at school with someone who had that surname, is that person going to be offended? It’s tricky.’
Ms Rowling also gave an insight into her writing methods, which can often see her scribbling out lines at 3am in a notebook beside her bed.
She once enjoyed writing to the sound of voices in Edinburgh cafes, but has since switched to a writing room across her garden.
The 58-year-old said: ‘That background hum of conversation I found very soothing.
‘But there came a point where I couldn’t go on writing in cafés. Which is a shame, but I couldn’t be anonymous any more.’
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