A couple of years ago when the final Harry Potter book released, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I rushed out to get a copy (which I found at Fry’s Electronics oddly enough).  After three days of solid reading, including an all night bender to get through the final 300 pages I was thoroughly satisfied with the ending. For days I basked in the afterglow of destroyed horcruxes, wand lore and the truth, which I suspected all along, that Snape was not such a bad guy.  In the midst of all theses things I also had a revelation about the writing process.  It was something I never really took to heart even though people had been saying as much all along: writing means writing a lot.  

Based on what I’ve read about J.K. Rowling, she had all seven books plotted out before she started them.  The further you read into the Harry Potter books the more you realize how deep the story is.  Each side story and character is essential to the grand plot with all loose ends tied together securely in the end.  It took years of writing to bring everything all together and not just what we see in the books.  I like to think that J.K. Rowling has mountains of notebooks filled with stories and material we may never see, like the fully story of Neville’s parents, more on Dumbledore’s early years, details about spells and potions and maybe, if we really care but probably do not, what ever happened to the Dursleys. 

Rowling has launched a website, Pottermore, which is supposed to be a whole new way to experience the Harry Potter stories and it’s likely we may get a glimpse of the extra details she likely had to write in order to bring us the books.  Regardless the message to me is still the same: write and write and write some more and then pick out the cream to make butter. 

Case in point: I wrote a whole other blog post on a completely different book before I came up with this one.  It was when I realized I got that really good dairy reference I finally knew I had the right thing to say.