Deathly Hallows Completed...

SPOILER to Dealthly Hallows in Paragraph #1:

This is my immediate reaction to finishing Deathly Hallows, which I did Thursday, 7/26. I will write about my reactions to the content later.

There is something churning inside of me…and I don’t know what it is. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night at 1:22am so I cannot discount fatigue. It did not help that my son woke up twice last night, around 2am and again around3:30. the second time was because he was scared and my mind flitted to the epilogue of Deathly Hallows where Harry himself is a parent, comforting his middle child on his first trip to Hogwarts.

So it might be fatigue. Another part, too, is the inevitable sense of loss and emptiness I feel for having completed the saga, having made it to the finish line with good friends and allies. We readers all knew the was coming, we all couldn’t wait to know how it all turned out but dreaded that very thing. We all wanted to savor these last few, never-been-read pages. Sure, we can—and we will—re-read these books but we’ll never agin have that feeling we had during one glorious week (or days or hours) in July 2007.

Now we must all ask ourselves “What’s next?” What other book can capture us the way J.K. Rowling’s books did? Before 21 July, I was reading Elmore Leonard’s first novel, a western. Now, it seems so quaint. I loved the epic nature of Harry’s story, his journey. I want that again. But, I think, reading only epics would dilute their grandeur, so I won’t. There’s always Stephen King’s Dark Tower series but that’s something else entirely.

Fatigue, loss and emptiness, longing for what’s next. That pretty much leaves only one thing: write one myself. Not a Harry Potter fan fiction piece, but a full-fledged epic. Maybe not seven books but something. But I’m not sure I’m ready yet. I think I need year on me, practice. JKR didn’t need practice, you say, and maybe I don’t either. We’ll see. But right now—as this little missive here demonstrates—writing is a salve and it burns within me to do only one thing: write.