Childhood aspirations

All this time I thought when I was a little kid I wanted to draw for a living when I grew up (I also remember wanting to be a teacher, a lawyer or an embryologist). See, when you get a book published, people ask what you were like as a kid, and what you aspired to, growing up.
You get all introspective about it, and try to remember.
And what I'd remembered was that, as far back as my brain would cooperate, I was a good writer and a good artist, but writing was my mother's forte and, being territorial, I figured I couldn't write. And so I drew.But my dear friend April just described her work-in-progress and it jolted my brain and suddenly I remembered something wonderful: When I was 7 or 8 I read Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family which I looooved. I read it a zillion times. I remember loving it so much I drew and wrote new scenarios for the witch girls. I longed to write and illustrate a real, published story about little witch girls at school and at home. I knew I couldn't do justice to the idea as a kid. I knew I'd have to become a grownup first.
Incidentally, The Witch Family was nothing like Harry Potter. It was for younger kids, and it had an entirely different sensibility.
Funny that I forgot it all these years.
Funny to suddenly remember why I've liked the name Clarissa all these years, and why bumblebees have never scared me, even though I was stung between the toes when I was 9.
And funny to know now, with absolute certainty, that at age 8 I wanted to grow up and write and illustrate kids' stories for a living.

Harry Potter 6 and 7

~no spoilers, but I can't guarantee others' comments~
I just finished book 6 and 7 within the past 2 weeks.
Wow.
Say what you will about the adverbs, J.K. Rowling is one fabulous writer.

Things I loved:
Snape
The underlying message of love
The richness of her fantastic world
Harry isn't perfect
Neville's and Draco's roles
Ginny

Things that surprised me:
The ending
Teddy in the epilogue
Albus's middle name in the epilogue
Less "dumbing down" to American English of British idioms and slang in the later books















Things I guessed before they were revealed:
Snape
The exact location of the last thing Harry sought
The eventual roles of two major locations
Why two of his friends disappeared near the end

Things that angered and disgusted me:
the revelation about Harry's destiny
Harry's plan against the goblin

Things that annoyed me:
Albus Dumbledore's constant referring to his own apparent brilliance
How a character would say, "This must be the answer" and it was -- when I could think of a half dozen other plausible answers.
"He said, sycophantically." Come on. Who talks like that?

Things I wonder about:
Did JKR tell filmmakers what items or characters would be important in later books? Or did she leave it to chance that they would include the most significant bits of her incredibly long stories?













Right after reading book 6 I was depressed for a day. I dreaded the ending of book 7 and the end of the series.
The recurring theme of death in the Harry Potter books reminds me of my own losses, some of them connected to Harry, actually, and it's painful. And the world has put a huge investment of time into reading the books. I'm a slow reader (despite doing well in speed reading in college) and my list of books to read is longer than my list of books I want to write.

I can survive in a world without a new Harry Potter book on the way, but it'll take me a little time to get used to it.

Now, back to my own writing...