[HPforGrownups] Will Success Spoil Harry Potter? Was: Do You Peek?

[Iggy McSnurd]

No: HPFGUIDX 81945

Sandy:
> I feel kinda sorry for JKR, too, but not that way. When I read the
> part of the post-OoP interview she gave where she said she missed
> writing in cafes because it made writing less lonely and that she
> does most of her writing now in front of a computer, I just went,
> Oohhhh! A certain amount of loneliness, of aloneness with your
> eyeballs turned around backwards in your head watching, feeling,
> creation occur between your ears, is necessary. (I hang out with
> writers and scribble stuff occasionally myself; can you tell?) The
> hustle and bustle of cafe customers and staff must have been a
> wonderful anodyne. Now, not only does she not have that, but the
> warm, intimate and joyous space in her head that Harry and the WW
> sprang from has become a commodity in the world arena. Most writers
> want to be read; what has happened to JKR and Harry doesn't even fit
> into "be(ing) read" anymore.

Which kinda leads me to wonder something:

1- Harry has most of HIS anonymity taken away from him by his fame...

JKR is having the places she loved to write in taken away from her by her
fame...


2 - Harry is beginning to withdraw into himself due to the pressures put on
him...

JKR has to withdraw into her home and herself in order to write now...


3 - Harry is the subject of much speculation, both good and bad, in the
WW...

JKR is the subject of much speculation, both good and bad, in the RW...


Anyone else see a connection of progression here?  (Or am I simply reading
too much into it.)


As for the feeling of being able to write in the busy and active, yet still
gently controlled and quiet environment of a cafe or coffee shop, I know it
well too.  I used to be a writing major, and still do some writing for my
own enjoyment (and, honestly, a bit of personally implemented therapy of
sorts.. *grin*).  Back in Santa Cruz, some of my best writing was done
sitting on the patio of Cafe Pergolesi (a small coffee shop) sipping on a
vanilla coffee, enjoying a clove cigarette, and writing as I watched and
listened to the world go by.  (I'm a big fan of people watching.)

Down here in Alabama... I don't write as much anymore.  I spend my days
taking care of my daughter, but even if she were in daycare, there's no
place for me to go here to get that feeling again.  The only places to hang
out, it seems, are at diners... and the only people who hang out there are
the older folks who sit around, talking with their cronies that they've
known since the 50's.

(Anyone in the Northern Alabama area got any ideas for me?  *grin*)

Oh, and PLEASE, if you reply to me with cafe and coffee shop suggestions,
send them via' direct reply, not to the list. (After all, we want to keep
the list itself as on topic as possible.  Thanks.)


Iggy McSnurd
the Prankster


"I'll always remember the last words of my Uncle Shellwick when he said
'What dragon??'"

-- Iggy McSnurd