When I first read J.K. Rowling's hard-luck story about being on welfare and writing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in longhand in a coffee shop, I thought it was a very effective selling point for the book, although the story is true.
Can you imagine the determination it took to write under those conditions? JKR was at a low point. I read that her ex-husband kicked her out of the house when their daughter was a few months old; the next day she came back with reinforcements to get the baby and leave the cad forever. She and the baby lived with her sister and brother-in-law for a while, then she lived in Scotland on welfare while she wrote her book, attended classes to earn a teaching certificate, and eventually taught classes. JKR said the story about writing in a coffee shop because her apartment was too cold isn't true; she just liked the coffee. 
I was surprised to learn that JKR still writes in longhand. She's writing the final book on lined paper. How charming! On her site, she writes about running out of paper. From her "diary" (via the Scotsman):
"Why is it so difficult to buy paper in the middle of town? What is a writer who likes to write longhand supposed to do when she hits her stride and then realises to her horror she has covered every bit of blank paper in her bag? Forty-five minutes it took me, this morning, to find somewhere that would sell me some normal, lined paper."
Book 7 is being written (in longhand!) as I write this. Will all of John Granger's questions be answered, or will JKR leave us hanging? How will our theories pan out? How far off the mark are we? How close? Whether you love them or hate them, JKR and Harry Potter have changed the culture. Even if the "Boy Who Lived" dies in the book (Don't stone me!), he will live on.
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Original WP theme Copyright Mike Little
April 7th, 2006 at 9:23 am
I know it'd be a novelty, but it'd be neat if her original copies were made into a book. I love original manuscripts!
April 7th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Maybe one day she'll auction them off for charity. Can you image the bidding wars?!
April 7th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Writing longhand isn't an altogether common practice among writers, but there are those who do it. George Lucas writes all the first drafts of his screenplays longhand (albeit, this is probably not the greatest example, depending on your perspective). Stephen King actually penned the first draft of "Dreamcatcher" longhand, and he even said it afforded him a relationship to the text he'd rarely felt before. Perhaps Rowling finds a similar appeal. My only question is how she (and they) manage to survive those deadening cramps in the hand.
April 7th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
You know the *best* part about JKR writing in longhand?
There will be manuscripts (galore!) for us all to pore over, seeing her first drafts, rethinking, crossed-out dialogue, more rethinking, rewriting, second thoughts, restructuring…
On the rare occasions I get to London, my favorite thing to do is to go to the British Library and look at the manuscripts. Last time I was there (many years ago), they had manuscripts of the Beatles' songs on display. It was amazing to look at the discarded lyrics, to see the thought process preserved on paper.
And I remember standing dumbstruck, for ten minutes, it must have been, looking at the manuscript for Beowulf. *The* manuscript — there's only one. I just stood there trying to think back and back and back — a thousand years or so back…
I've mourned many times that today's digital age means we will lose all that. How lovely to know that (assuming she's hanging on to those priceless reams of paper) JKR will someday undoubtedly let us see *her* thought processes as Harry was created…
April 8th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Personally, I love writing by hand. My creative juices work better that way — I just hate typing it in afterward!
However, as for looking for 45 minutes for paper — I think she was just in the wrong part of town. It wouldn't ake me more than 10. The Bartell's drugs ANd the Safeway in walking distance sell both plain paper and paper in notebooks. However, I would not expect tourist traps in downtown Seattle to waste their precious space on such low-profit items.