Just finished the last Harry Potter book. Very well done. Fabulous. Bittersweet sad to be at the end of a story you’ve loved for years.

I finished it in about 24 hours (including the minor distractions of work and sleep), but before I got my hands on it, I had some time to think about it. I already knew it was a success; other Potter fan friends had told me so.

As I waited my turn for our family copy (and finished a story I had due), I got to thinking about JK Rowling. As a fairly new writer I feel pressure to write well, to make every story and every book a bit better than the last one, to reach upwards so I don’t lose this career that means so much to me. To reward the people who have beleived in me and helped me get this far. I often find it quite a lot of pressure, even though I know a lot of writers who have the same internal demons with even stronger voices. Worse, I don’t always succeed. It’s impossible for every story to be better than the last, every character clearer, every setting more vivid. Or even for every story to have fewer clunky lines. 🙂

But how much pressure must JK Rowling have have been under? How hard was it to belive in yourself enough to make every book better? How scary was finishing the last book, ending the story, and knowing that the end of the whole tale would form the final opinion of hundreds of thousands of readers? How the hell did she do it?