Harry Potter and the Hindsight Bias

I will proudly declare my love of the Harry Potter novels. I got into them well before the first movie came out, back when there were only 4 books. What began as a lark, wondering just what everyone saw in these British imports, quickly turned into a literary addiction by the end of the first chapter of the first book. I was hooked, and those years between novel releases were long. (Of course, Harry Potter readers have nothing on fans of the Dark Tower or Song of Ice and Fire sagas.)

As a writer myself, I am hugely envious of what J.K. Rowling was able to accomplish. She crafted an amazing seven volume series, which is already becoming a classic staple of English literature. Generations of children will tear into the world of Harry Potter much the same way previous generations enjoyed the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Prydain. Not only are these books good, they inspired a love of reading into a generation of children. It's hard to argue with that kind of success.

Except now, seven years after the publication of the final Harry Potter volume, Rowling regrets one of the biggest plot points of the series. (I should warn you that some spoilers will follow. If you haven't read the books and want to remain unspoiled, I suggest you log off the internet entirely, lock yourself in a secure bunker, and read all seven books. Because otherwise you will be spoiled.)

This Relationship Corner: Try it, You'll Like It

My wife has a habit of putting a book in my hand and demanding I read it. I just finished one a few weeks ago, in fact. We're both book-lovers, so reading has always been a shared interest. However, we often like to read different things, making it hard to talk about books because we don't know what the other is reading. This is why she assigns me homework, because she wants to talk to be about the books she loves so much.

Reading a book is a pretty serious time commitment, which is why I can be pretty picky about what I read. However, when my wife hands me a book, I'll often drop whatever I'm already reading and plow into it. Over the years, she's handed me many, many books and I've enjoyed all of them. Now, when she hands me something, I know I'll enjoy it, or at the very least enjoy talking about it with her.

Advantage: Print Books

I fully recognize that e-books are the wave of the future. In fact, I'm doing my best to embrace this wave. However, just because I'm not fighting the inevitable doesn't mean that I'll always love print books. For me, there's nothing better than holding a book in my hand and knowing one thing for certain.

I have no problem killing a spider with this thing.

All right, print books are useful for more than spider killing, but I consider that a pretty good perk. When you hold a Nook or a Kindle, the last thing you will do is use your expensive new toy to send that spider back to Hell. No, you will carefully put it down and then go look for something to kill that spider. By then, your eight-legged tormenter won't be where you left her and you'll spend your night hunting that walking nightmare down.

That Dreaded First Draft

You may know that I've written a book. If you didn't know that, then you must not have been paying attention to all the times I mention it on this site. Which is a lot. Look at the sidebar; it's there several times. The point is, I've written it. It's written.

Now I'm writing another one. This second book is the next in the series. I'm more than halfway done with the first draft and I plan to be finished by the end of this month. Then I'll have a complete draft that I'll be glad to be finished with. I'll also be very afraid to read through it. Why?

It's going to suck.

Here's the secret to writing. The first draft is supposed to suck. It's all right if it's awful. The point is not to make it perfect, the point is to get it out there. You need that first, complete draft because you need to see what your idea looks like when it's actually in print. It's no longer an idea bouncing around in your head, it's actually something real, something that is tangible (sort of), something you can mold into your great literary work.