Additional funding provided by these funders. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose j. K. Rowling is here, if you do not know who she is let me tell you, two decades ago she sat on a delayed train when the image of a scrawny black haired be spectacled boy who didnt know he was a wizard came to her, it soon captured the imagination of readers around the world and began and unprecedented full comurl phenomenon, Time Magazine credited Harry Potter Series with creating a universal detail to detailed and believable that an entire generation has pretty much chosen to live there. It is a best selling book series in history with more than 450 million copies sold, and six, in 67 languages, eight movies have also been spawned and they have grossed 7. 7 billion worldwide. Now, five years after laying harry pot tore rest, she has written her first book for adults, it is called the casual vacancy, i am pleased to have j. K. Rowling at this table for the first time, welcome. Thank you very much. Rose i have been waiting for you. Really . Good. Nice to hear. How much trepidation did you have after you decided to put harry to bed . Uhhuh. Rose and deciding what you wanted to do and how to do what you inevitably wanted to do is write another book . Uhhuh. That is a good question. Because a happy idea for, i had the idea for the casual vacancy right after finishing deathly hall lows, so i was. Actually promoting the deathly hallows in the states and had the idea in a plane. Rose on a plane is crucial. On a plane is crucial. Rose . One from a train, one on a plane, i need that to get me moving, how i get my ideas. There is always trepidation, i think people might be surprised to know i saw trepidation every time i produced a potter book, the weight of expectation there was i wont say crushing, it was extraordinary and wonderful to have that weighted expectation. Rose on yourself. Yes, and with the expectations laterally of millions of fans all of whom are very invested in the story and see what they wanted to see and i knew where i was going and i had to put on mental blinkers a lot and think i know where i am going uh i must not be influenced by this. So in a sense, it was liberating to leave that weight of expectation behind and know i could just do what i wanted to do, it was very freeing, but i must say that i spent the first two years work opening the casual vacancy telling me you dont even have to publish that and you dont even have to publish this book and that was a way of bringing down my own awareness that, you know, people, it wasnt going to be what some people wanted it to be. Because as we both know i could have kept writing harry potters forever pretty much. Rose and why didnt you . Because i always envisioned it as a seven book series, i had enough plot for seven books, and when i always knew i would stop at seven, and i am not going to lie it was heartbreaking in many ways because harry was with me through a very turbulent period of my life, and it was always a place that i could go and you talk about regis, readers able to go there it was a place i could go and to close the door was it was like a death, but i knew that it was time to go, and i have not regretted it, i think it was rose other than all of the obvious things yes. Rose money, wealth. Yes, it changed my life, the most obvious thing clearly is utterly changed my life and transformed my life, my life situation, we were in a precarious, my daughter and i were in a precarious situation for a few years, but beyond that, it connected me, harry connected me to it just has been a storyline through so much of my life so when i look at the back of the books i remember where i was when i wrote all of these, 17 years i spent with those characters, 17 years. Rose do you talk to them in some real sense . The one i miss the most beyond any character is dumbbell dore and he was a strange character because i always say i feel like i wrote him from somewhere the back of my brain and often say things. I didnt say i believed but i would say yes that is true, so he was an interesting character and i miss him, if i could talk to any of them it would be dumbledore. This gives us neither knowledge nor truth, men have wasted away in front of it. Even gone mad. That is why tomorrow it will be moved to a new home. And i must ask you, not to go looking for it again. It the does not do to dwell on dreams, harry. And forget to live. Rose so you set out to write this new book. You knew it was going to be about adults. Uhhuh uh. Rose what else did you know after you had that inspiration on that plane . Well, the germ of the idea was a council of action, a local Council Election that would be subverted by teenagers. Which was a device to expose certain secrets, yes, that was the basic idea and i was excited by that idea because, it was going to give me an opportunity to explore a lot of things that are important to me, and things that obsessed me frankly. Rose and. Well, for example, i just talked about the fact that i was in a very prekaren situation for a few, precarious situation and probably as poor as you could be without being homeless in uk, friends and family helped they but, you know, it was tough, and. Rose . Rose and you were writing a book and had to depend on the government . Well, yes, i did, although i was working parttime at the, the law was you could earn up to a very small amount a week without forfeiting housing benefit which was the thing that was keeping us home so i worked up to that amount, i had a clerical job in a church at one point, so and then i was teaching, but we were still existing partly on benefits, i couldnt wholly support us and then the miracle happened. Harry was published, and we really didnt look back after a few months, it changed my life. But that period, that period of my life was a formative experience for me, and it shaped my world view, and it always will shape my world view. The experience of having been part of a mass of people who are very voiceless, the experience of being scapegoated and stigmatized because that was the Political Climate at that time, really has colored my world view ever since and i dont think i will ever lose that. Define what you mean, i think i know what you mean by world view. In that, it is a frightening experience to become a statistic, to almost fall off the radar of what people think is important to discuss, and to be talked about in terms that you dont recognize, and i think that something i felt very powerfully after emerging from that situation, was people lose their individualality when they was trapped in that kind of poverty it is a humiliating place to be and. Affects your life in ways that people havent been there cant comprehend, your choices contract so even someone like me who had a university education, you know, i had i was an educated person who wanted to work very much, i was really trapped, you know, you fall beneath a certain level of poverty and without rich relatives it is very, very difficult to get out of that situation. Rose and you want us to understand these are real people. Yes. With real lives and generosity . And all of these other human qualities. Exactly right, yes. Rose and do you want us to also understand that they feel, not only that they dont matter, but that others perhaps more fortunate have contempt for them or just dont know them . Well i think it is a mixture of both. I think that it is easy to caricature, now i would say that this is i feel this is not a black and white, in the sense that i do not wish to glamorize every poor character in the book nor do i, i am not suggesting that everyone who is in, who is living in poverty is heroic, but all i would say is there are probably about the same proportion of unheroic characters living in poverty as in other classes. Rose right, right. So certainly there are some unpleasant people in this book that happen to be poor but it, the action is around a 16yearold girl who grew up in tremendously difficult circumstances and the question for me is, and the question i hope the reader ponders is, is she worth saving, who should be saving her . To what extent is in her fault . Rose in is crystal. Crystal, exactly. Rose tell me about the story i want to come back to it because of what you have just said, the casual vacancy has to do with the death of a councilman. Right. Initially it was framed in my head i was calling the book responsible because the theme is personal responsibility, i am, responsibility in a community sense but then i found this phrase which i never met before it was a casual vacancy when someone in occupying a political asset dies they leave a casual vacancy that that, and that phrase spoke to me on many levels, all of these levels have a lack or a vacancy in their lives to some extent rose it is a metaphor for everything. Exactly, yes. Rose we mentioned teenagers several times. Yes. Rose same thing is true with harry potter, what sit about teenagers . I dont know, do you think it is arrested development . I dont know. Rose i do know you said your teenage years were not that happy with you. I loved, stephen king says if you enjoy being a teenager there is something really wrong for you and that made me that really struck me here, i mean,. Rose so a happy teenager could not read write a book like this or stephen king. No, no definitely not, well actually i think the urge to write often comes from a wish to rearrange reality, the reality you are in so i dont think i have ever met but is it easier to make it a fantasy or a real village that has real people. There is not much difference and there are different kind of books but for me, what obsesses memorial at this, mortality. Rose those two things most of all. Absolutely. Rose run through everything you do. Exactly they run through harry potter completely and i probably will never be able to morality and mortality. A close friend of mine and i finished the book and he says how many people died . He knows me so well. Rose because he knows you. Exactly, but to go back to the teenagers point you raise i think i am fascinated by people who are on the cusp of adulthood, it is such an interesting time of life i think most of us would say that we again, it is a very formative period in everyones life. It is rebellion and unformed. Rose and looking for identifies. Absolutely, but also, which is an interesting thing about adolescence is, often much more concern with the big issues of life, the people the middle age like me who is struggling with the minutia of every day life. Rose concerned with the essence of life which is relationships and love and fear well, teenage boy asks another in this book what matters, and the answer is sex and death, and then as an afterthought, music. Now, none of the adults characters are having that conversation, this is not rose they are worried about mundane things. Paying the bills and you know what . They are right to worry about paying the bills, we all do. Rose but here is what is amazing to me. You were worrying about paying the bills and yet at the same time you were writing amount the fantasy of teenagers and everything else. Yes. Both of those at the same time, you had to be an adult and worry about paying the bills and deeply inside of a life in which you are not worrying about, you are only thinking about well well i think rose an imagine world of which sex relationships. Yes, completely, yes, yes. I mean, thats the life of a writer isnt it, i have to have, for want of a better term a rel life and look after my kids and then i have this other life as all writers do where i am somewhere else completely. You want us to look for what happens to crystal and who is she in this book. Yes, definitely, yes, yes. Rose and how do we find her . Well, i think that people reading the book have had varying reactions to her i think that if if someone which reads this book say they could not find any redeeming quality in crystal and i have nothing to say to that person. Rose they have missed it . I would suggest, yes. What do you think her redeeming qualities are . She has aspirations, she has grown up in a household rose she has dreams . Yes, she has grown up in a household where there is no aspiration, no one has given her a model in how to succeed or how to live a different life and yet crystal has this latent desire to succeed, to achieve, she wants to hold her family together, she is parenting her younger brother, who is being quite egregiously neglected by their biological mother i think there is a lot in crystal to love, at the same time she is promiscuous and foulmouthed and pretty ignorant and intermittently violent so i am not glorifying crystal, this isnt oliver twist, someone who skated through hardship and comes out the other side rose how much of her is you . Well, i think it is kind of scary when applied to me because i created something, 200 characters in the harry potter book but every character is every writer. Rose but for crystal . I wouldnt say crystal. Rose she drives this story she drives the story. Rose she has to be somebody you have known. No one in this book has a living followed but i have known people like everyone in this book, yes, exactly, crystal is, i went to school, not unlike the School Representative in this book and i certainly knew girls like crystal, but in the plural, there is to one single girl. And i obviously taught for a while as i said earlier, i was teaching and again i was teaching in state schools where you had a very mixed intable and again i met people whose backgrounds were not kiss similar to crystal and whose behavior was not dissimilar to crystal. Rose the smallest microcosm of government here. Exactly. Rose is that important to know . I think it is. I mean a Parish Council in the uk is the tiniest building of democracy. Rose right. And i would say in writing about it, i became really impressed, you know, it is easy to satirize small town concerns, but i what i emerged with was with the knowledge of how much their decisions which may seem relatively small can have a huge meaningful impact on other peoples lives, i mean i am really it is very easy to denigrate the political process and sneer at politicians and i have done it myself. Rose sure. But there is no other way to get stuff done and a lot of people and in this book you see a great array of motivations for becoming a counselor but the guy who died on page 2 or 3 he was in it for the right reasons this is one who left a background not quite as bad as crystals but it hasnt been great and been very poor, and he wants to make a difference and he sees that as a valid way of making a difference, half a voice, and have a voice and give people who dont have a voice a voice into suppose you were the same woman writing harry potter and you are. Uhhuh. Rose but you are a billion dollars later with no serious worries, would your, you are less hungry and you have said you didnt have to write this book. No. You didnt need to write another book. No, yes. You may have needed it for you own psyche. Yes. But not to make money. Uhhuh. Thats right. Rose you didnt need it for reputation, you didnt need it for legacy, would it have been different if you did need it in the same way you needed harry potter . Would i have written a different book do you mean . I think sat really fascinating question. I dont think so. I dont think so. I think i would have written this book just the same. Rose and is it a better book, in fact because you have had in whole journey and migration from being poor, start manager the middle class with good schools, been poor then enormously rich, do you understand class better than most people because you have been everywhere . Possibly. Rose possibly. Yes. Possibly. Rose so what do you know about it, that we all are alike in so many ways. Yes, completely, i mean. Rose we are all jealous and all have rage and worry and worry about morale at this and mortality. A hero is quoted in this book as you know, family is important, but one of the families who is very crucial to the plot and the hero is he said and it is just the most beautiful thing, he treated know foe and friend alike on the battlbattlefield and when askedy he was giving aid to any wounded soldier, not just his side he replied, i cant differentiate between them and the light of god shines from every soul, that is the most beautiful, poetic way of expressing a common humanity. Rose well, it is interesting and this is far from this book but bill gates in terms of giving away all of the billions he has given away, and focusing on Global Health and poverty and disease, says that it spraining from a sense that all human life has value. Right. No, i would totally agree with that, i mean, you talk about the journey and understanding those different points of view, and i mean, i am exactly the same person i was then, when i am struggling to write harry potter and have to publishing deal and didnt know whether it would ever be published, my need to write is completely unchanged, so some things dont change at all, other things change greatly, mainly the way you are viewed by other people. Rose do you care about that at this stage. No it is not that i care about that but you worry about that, but they are different, thats the big difference. Rose how they see you is different and how they react to you. And what you have to say. Exactly. A. And nobody had a damned to say what i had to say. Rose i am the same person. And i would say the same thing now but now people want to hear it. Rose and thats because and that is disconcerting, it can be disconcerting to have that interest. Do you ever say to yourself am i that interesting is. I dont give that many interviews because i get sick of the sound of my own voice, i dont think i have enough opinions to fill i dont know. You work in a hungry media, medium and sometimes it is quite intimidating. Rose it is a larger point, i mean is it writing that you are happiest when you are in search of a character and where that character is going to take you . You know, when i am happiest is when i am about twothirds of the way through a book and at that point i am flying, always i am flying, and i am just that is a place i live to be. Twothirds wake up in the morning i am amount twothirds of the way through and know exactly where i am going and the whole day to write that to mesa perfect day. Rose and do you try to perfect each sentence or do you want to it doesnt always work out that way but you are hoping to. Rose but i have been told the books you turn into your editors are pretty much the books that get published that you dont require a lot of editing. Well, that is kind, i look back at some of the potter books anand i itch i do go back with a red pen and rose that is self editing, not that somebody else is editing. This book, no well, i have got a great editor, David Shelley and he is that perfect, person who is like a coach, you know, who knows how to get the best out of you so he was fantastic so no, i dont think it changed a great deal. He just has a phenomenal understanding, on this book he had a phenomenal understanding of what i was trying to do, and there were places where he said, that is great, but you need to do more of that there he is just pine tuning and just phenomenal, he had a great understanding of what i wanted to do and was on my side, because, you know, when we went it is always nerve racking to turn in manuscripts. Rose now people make these kind of comparisons, dickins and elliott and that kind of thing, my point is not if you think think of yourself as those but my point is, what kind of acknowledgment and appreciation would satisfy you the most . My god. Rose because you i think it is very dangerous for a writer to start thinking in those terms, i think i really mean that, this isnt forced modesty or i mean rose you dont seem like a person with false modesty. I am enormously flattered anyone would mention those names to me. Rose i know. I will say i consciously wanted this book to be a modern take on that kind of 19th century novel where you do go into a Small Society and you really analyze and anatomize that tiny society, so that is great that people would say, you know, they would recognize i am trying to write in that tradition. Rose wright. And there is a difference between that and me sitting there thinking, now who would i like to be paired to. Rose thats why i asked the question the way i did. Who, no, no. I think it is rose do you think of yourself as dickins . No. Rose of course not. I dont get that question but i also think that i do genuinely think that if you are if you are sitting there thinking, now whom would i most like to be compared to, you are wasting your time, just get on and do the work. Rose yes but who are you writing for . My ideal reader has an open mind, and loves characters i suppose. Rose but when you are writing it do you see it like a movie . I mean pretty soon i assume after harry potter you saw the movie characters for harry potter and then interestingly rose interesting . No, i didnt. Rose you never thought of him with one exception, that this is what is interesting to me, i never saw dan or rupert or emma as no, because i lived with them so long i saw my characters in my head, there was one exception, and i have said this before, if anna lynch who placed luna love good, i saw her. You they are conspiring against you and dumbledore. Thank you. I suppose thats how what do you mean . Well if i were you know who i would want to see from everyone else. Because if it is just you alone, it was such a perfect, i am not saying they were not perfect casting because i adore those people. But she popped in my head and i even heard her voice when i was writing luna. Rose but how did harry differ from the actor in this case . I mean, how did the picture you had in your head differ from the picture we have on the screen. Dan they know i have said this, they are much better looking than the kids i saw in my head. Rose really . He is beautiful, staggeringly beautiful. Rose you didnt see that kind of in the book, her mine, her mine any, she gets a little more styled as she gets older but what emma had which mailed her. Which i am so glad they cast her, emma is a very intelligent girl, who played intelligent beautifully, mohammed is not at all, even though she is stunningly beautiful, emma is not about her books, but it shown through her portrayal of hermoine because she was such a bright, smart girl and i needed any hermoine to be that kind of person. Just how i remember it, the trees, the river, everything. Like nothing has changed. The trees, the river, not even me. Grow old. Rose did the movies teach you anything about your characters . Did you see anything about your characters that might have added to their complexity . Because actors can take lines. Yes, definitely. And their job is to make them, enhance them. Gary old man was fantastic. Rose i loved him. He was amazing and he gave serious something that was in my mind for serious but on screen, he i really saw it, that slight edge of insanity of being unbalanced, somebody who had been locked up a long time and he just played that. Now listen to me, i want you to tell me everything about it. Beautiful. Let me tell you. When you are writing this, were there multiple, with the multiple characters you have is finding somebody that is a bit crazed, is that like thinking . Thrilling . Because you can do so many things you have got to rein it in. You have to pitch it right, because otherwise it just becomes like a cardboard and paste caricature and you still have to find the center of the crazy person, bellatrix in the books is probably the most out of control Insane Person in the book, even more than valued more who has, valued mort who has a,. Thats how i saw her, that there was a kind of, a lack of boundaries. Rose yes. Does literary merit matter . Generally speaking or rose no, for what you write. Rose i mean will you be bothered by reviews that are not as kind as others . Even though they are reputable people. No. Does it matter . No, no. Rose does it matter because it cant affect your life or your psyche . Already two things i would say to that. First of all, it is one of the amazing and wonderful things about literature and about film and music is it is utterly subjective, so. Rose somebodys opinion. The point of it, you know, that is the point, of course you live in that world if you expect to stand under a shower of perpetual praise there is something wrong with you. Rose exactly right. You will get criticism i knew that come going in and i am not a particularly i was never a very Competent Person in areas of my life of which i am very thinskinned but not in this area, and in this area, i think it is right and proper i should be criticized and that is rose and can you learn from it . Yes, sometimes, absolutely. It depends, i mean, reviews i have thought yes, that is fair comment and i need to take that on board. Rose really . Yes of course. Rose where are you thinskinned . I was a very back to adolescence i was a very self conscious adolescent. Rose about. Oh god about everything, you know and that goes into adulthood and i have had to learn to be a little more grown up. Rose are there any insecurities left . Yes, i am not sharing them on tv. Rose give me an example of the kind of thing you are talking about, what could you be insecure about . You have a great marriage to a wonderful doctor. I do. Rose . Absolutely. Rose and doing just fine, thank you very much, yes . But i am a human being like anyone else and we all have our insecurities and we all have places where we feel we could do better. Rose something other than mortality and morality . Or vanity . All of those things are in all of us, we all worry about those things and i am not immune. Rose do you have anything that you want to prove now . I mean,. Rose i mean this was an effort to say i can go somewhere else, and tell different kinds of stories. Because in the end i am a storyteller and thats what i do. Yes, fundamentally thats what i wanted to write and thats why i wrote it and i knew perfectly well some people wouldnt love it, but that is okay, that is okay. That is how it should be. And indeed with a book like this, if some people didnt hate it, i would have written it wrong. Rose yes. Exactly. In other words dash. You would have taken risks. Rose no risks taken exactly, exactly. What kind of role do you want to have as as the member of the community you are now a part of, this Larger Community and you and the queen and me and the queen. Rose and all of that you are it is amazing, amazing. Rose because . Because danny boil, who. Rose produced it. Produced it, he asked me rose i thought of him as a film maker. He was amazing, he was amazing, i mean, he was like a general, there were so many thousands of people involved in that. Rose that is what directors do. Yeah, well i had never seen such a graphic demonstration of the skills that you need, so he persuaded me i said no a couple of times i was terrified. Rose how did he persuade you. Well we had a facetoface meeting and my husband was there also and he told me, everything that was going to happen, including the queen jumping out of the plane, and after he told me the queen jumping out of the plane i thought no one is going to remember i was there, so that really brought down my anxiety level i understood i was going to be a small cog in an amazing machine and i thought i will be very proud to be a part of this and i should do it. It was terrifying, it was terrifying. Rose which part was terrifying. 80,000 people in the crowd walking out there, and then the knowledge which i was trying very hard to block out, of how many people were watching on tv, and for someone who used to be phobic about public speaking, this was you know, this was quite quite a big deal. Rose but you are so relaxed here in this conversation. But this is easy, this feels like me and you sitting at a table, so it is very easy for me rose it is that kind of tail. Yes. Rose it is easy. But so when you think about the future in terms of i mean, you dont have much to prove other than to keep doing what brings you great joy, what is the satisfaction of writing for you . Other than it is what you do . Like this is what i do. I wish i knew the answer to that, because but it is what i do, and it is so fundamental and i have such a powerful need to write. Rose need . Yes a need. Rose without it i think i would be mentally ill. Rose mentally ill . Yes, maybe. I remember, i remember when i years ago, i read for the first time virginia wolff had been told she mustnt write,. Rose yes. And i can remember feeling, horrific how could they have stopped her writing . That is me. I cant tell you how serious that would be to me. But why . I am not quite sure what it is. Rose it is easy to give you identity and definition i suppose i have a real need to go and create different worlds in my head. I just am driven to do that, yes. Rose and was that why harry potter was what it was. Yeah. Rose because you needed to create another world . Yeah and then i brought all of the robs with this world into that world too, but it was a great way of examining those problems, to do it in that parallel, seemingly more seemingly safer place, it wasnt really safer at all. Rose you described the great joy of being twothirds in and you know where it is going and that is really on a high then. Yes. Rose are you on a high when you get the idea as you did on the train and plane. Yes. Rose and you knew this is where and do you know it . I mean yes because i always know when i have had a decent idea and this has never let me down because i get this physical response this rush of adrenaline, it is really physical, that is how that is how i saw what i think of the good ideas from the bad ideas. Do you have another idea that thrills you and excite you . Yes, i know what my next i am pretty sure what my next two books will be, so, yes. Rose they are . Well one is for kids and one is for adults, and i am excited about both of them. Rose do you mix them up . I mean, can you write two of them at the same time . Not not exactly but i have got two notebooks with me on this trip, one for each book and i am jotting in both. I have notebooks and not really writing, i am just rose but you are also a constant by nature of where you are and what you have done and what you can do, have you become a finally finally, finely observer of human nature. I am fascinated by people and that is at the heart of absolutely everything i have written, because i would i do firmly believe. Rose did you learn that in school . No, i think you are just that way. Rose i was curious at five. I was just very interested in people and i do think so often, what was it about harry potter that captivated people . The magic was fun but it was ultimately it was the characters that kept people coming back, it was the people. Rose how do you write . You get up in the morning early do you go make coffee and sit down . Late 40s, believe me the best work is done early morning. Rose exactly. The earlier, when i was in my 20s i could indeed sit up all night but those days are gone. It is really best to get up early and i find that the morning rose early means what . Well, my husband needs da. Rose the crash of 6 30 to get to work my huh and the kids need to be get up early to go off to school, so once they have gone and the house is empty i would start working yes and get another coffee and start working and thats the ideal writing time, those hours in the morning. Rose and how long . Well, i can write a lot of hours in the day, i mean i have done eight hours days comfortably recently. And every day you sit down for eight hours a day you have something on the page . Yes, definitely. Rose you dont go days in which you are just no. Rose but there was a in writing this there were times there have been times both in harry potter and this, where the struggle gave you not, not writers block, but something, right . There have been times where you said, the stress of the expectation i tell you rose how long did it take you to write this . Yeah, i was writing all of this stuff at the same time. Rose like what. So there is other stuff going on in those five years. I wasnt working on casual vacancy from beginning to end for five years. Rose why not . Because i never worked that way, i have always had other things going on. Rose were you writing seven on harry potter when you should have been writing four . I wrote part of another Childrens Book midway through harry potter i want to go back and finish i always jumped and i need to have several things on rose you have had times where you need to pull yourself away from it, havent you . I have rose the stress i had a break between goblet and phoenix. Rose what was that about. It was about i said to the publishers, i cant give you another book next year i have done one a year for four years, and. Rose you broke their heart, didnt you . Yes but they got a huge book. I just said to them, i need to step i need to recharge my batteries. It wasnt that i didnt want to write, but i needed to step away a little and that, i was going to take a twoyears to do the next book and i took three and in those two years i met my husband and married my husband and had a baby, i wasnt expecting all of that to come from taking a break. Rose i am also interested in the Creative Process and i have come to understand first of all there is no spirit on high that speaks to you, which speaks to you, you know, as an idea that you can then dive into and then make choices, you make choices about your characters you make choice cross they do this or that . What is the creative idea about . You are right, i find that people are very interested in the concept of inspiration. Rose right. And it exists for sure. Rose right. The ideas of the casual vacancy and harry potter and others things i am writing fell into my head and where they came from, you can tell yourself, okay, it came from somewhere in the minds of the conscious but it feels like someone dropped it in your head and thats a wonderful thing, a girl asked me at the launch of the casual vacancy do you only write when you are inspired . I said, no, because i would have written a page and a half. Rose exactly. I said to her, you have got to i mean, some people dont want to hear that about writing. You are hot sitting there taking dictation from an ayn really. Rose exactly. You have to work, it is about structure, it is about discipline, all of these things your School Teacher told you you needed, you need it. Rose i mean, what is sort of, you never know where you get good ideas. No. Rose you dont sit there and say give me a good idea. You cant think yourself into that, you can work yourself into being inspired, i have sat in front of the blank page, i remember chapter 13, harry potter and the goblet of fire, the number of times i rewrote that dumb chapter. Rose because. Because i needed to show something without showing it, i think it is chapter 13, i am pretty sure it is,. If you dont know, i dont know who does there are people out there watching me how could you not i can recite that chapter, i am so humiliated. Rose you are right. They can. But it was technical very difficult to convey the information i needed to convey while hiding certain things and i dont know how often i rewrote it, the reality is it is like a science at this test, everything that that fails brings you closer to what works. Your mom, i mean, all of us have this instinct, goll, i wish my mom or my dad was here to hear this story. Uhhuh. To share this joy, to see this, because we all want to say. Look what i did. Rose look what i did. Yeah, definitely, it is a very complex question for me, because i mean, what wouldnt i give to give for my mother to see what happened and it would have meant so much to her, i mean, she was such a reader and valued books and literature very, very highly and the house was full of books because of my mother so on that level, i mean, the human, the most personal level, as they say what wouldnt i give . What cray, what is crazy about the situation is, if she hadnt died, the books wouldnt have been what they are, so i get caught into one of those horrible kind of time loops. Also, if my mother hadnt died i would never have gone to teach abroad because when she was alive and well i wouldnt have left the country, in portugal and never met my exhusband and never would have one of the most important people ever in my life, my oldest daughter, so, you know, life throws you these terrible, terrible things that seem so atrocious and so appalling and yet somehow we get through them, we do and you look back and think, well, but i got given my daughter, that wouldnt have happened and as i say, her death infuse it is whole Harry Potter Series, because everything became a little darker and deeper after she died, i had been writing six months before she died, and then i got to experience well hear, what harry experienced, you know, i lost one of the people who meant the most to me in the whole world and as i say books would be very different if she had lived. Rose what would you say to her . I would say,. Rose look what you did . Well, yes, look what happened. Rose in living and in dying, you have given me yes, exactly. Exactly. She i am very grateful i had her until 25 it wasnt long enough and you now try to provide some Research Funds for people to somehow come to a greater understanding of yes. She died from commissions, complications to do with her multiple sclerosis, multiple sclerosis doesnt kill people, but the my indications resulting from the disease may, and she was very unlucky, she had a very severe form of the disease, one thing i have learned over the years i have been involved with research is, and it is part of what is so strange and something we need to understand about the disease is how variable the cause can be, so i really wouldnt want anyone to diagnose and think, oh, my god what is going to happen because, i have met people since becoming involved in research who are doing just fine and then there are other people like my mother. Rose we have done programs at this table with scientists. Right, there is never a great time to be diagnosed but never a better time with people with multiple sclerosis there are Treatment Options out there and Great Research and alternatives a lot of alternatives for people. Rose how about your father . Well, yeah, i have discussed this, we dont really have a relationship. Was it 2003 or i know it has been pretty much a decade, so, yeah, it must have been, yeah. Rose why . Well, i have an aversion to i mean, i dont want to speak for anyone but me. Rose yes. So i am not rose so from you . Because sometimes i think a relationship is so difficult that that happens and i dont say that lightly, obviously it is a very big deal but equally i am not ashamed to say that i made a decision that i dont egret and thats where we were. But i dont want to go into really personal stuff because i do genuinely feel it is unfair when the other person isnt here to have their say. Rose there is also this about you, which i found fascinating, when we had a conversation in the morning over at cbs, there were people lined up to see you. Right. Rose and that has, i was just struck by how meaningful that is to you. Of course. Rose they want t to go and buy this book and go stabbed outside half of the might to see you, because of what the book has meant to them. It is because of what the book means to them. Rose to touch the person that said something that well how, what a, what writer couldnt be incredibly touched by that, i have a particular feeling for many of these people are in their early 20s to the people who grew up with harry so i think that my books occupied a special place in their lives, they grew up with the harry year on year and now i am meeting young adult whose had that experience and that is incredibly moving to neat people of that age who are standing there in front of me saying like or telling you what you meant in their childhood, i mean, i cant imagine anyone wouldnt be phenomenally moved by that. And before we leave you this evening, this montage of the harry potter films, one of the highest grossing combination of films in the history of movies. You have made a mistake. I mean i cant be a wizard. I mean, i am just harry. Just harry. Welcome to hog warts. Now in a few moments you will pass through these doors and join your classmates, but before you can take your seats you must be to your elders, they are grinch dorff, raven claw, and slithering. Now while you are here, your house will be like your family. Your triumphs will earn you points and any rule breaking and you will lose points. What is that . Beware. Tell them hog warts is no longer safe. It is as we say, it is over. The chamber of secrets has indeed been opened again. Da, da, da, da isnt he beautiful . Say hello to duckby. What is that . We now have our three champions. But in the end, only one will go down in history, only one will hoist this chal chalice of champions, this vessel of victory. The tri wizards cup. He is really out there, isnt he . We need somebody who will. You must obey every command i give you without question. Yes, sir. You do understand what i am saying . If i tell you to hide, hide, if i tell you to run, run. You could have killed me we never meant to kill. We only meant to maim or seriously injure. Harry pot search dead, from this day forth, you put your faith in me. Harry potter is dead. Rose all of your characters right there. Uhhuh. Rose take a look at this. This is what people have said to me about you and about the series on this program. Roll the tape. Tell me who harry pot search and why it is so phenomenally successful. I think it taps into the basic idea of i look at myself as a kid growing up in ohio and when i was 11 years old, i would have given anything to get a letter from hog warts school of witchcraft and which starred i are i will take you out of this dreary existence and let you escape from this life. Basically, at its heart these books give people a sense of hope and you can be eight years old and feel that or be ten or 11, particularly for kids, it gives them a sense of empowerment of hope saying you can do Something Different with your life. He is a very easy person because she knows what she is doing, and he is very confident and those are the easiest people to work with because you can give her any kind of feedback and dont have to worry she will be distressed by it or thrown by it, she knows what she wants and if i just tell her how i react, she hose what to do with it. There is also something extra and beyond the theme, it is just a divine piece of writing, that is all. Rose a divine piece of writing. I hope she writes a whole different kind of thing after this so we believe it, on the last book came out, you remember she showed a clip of harold bloom saying how terrible these books are and havent read any except the first one. He is a great writer. Tell me what the essence of the books is. Well, the books in general i think that part of the success of what j. K. Rowling did is that she crafted this adventure, thematically she dealt with the themes and the characters from an archetype type of standpoint, so from like fairy tales and fables and then they connect directly into human consciousness. Obviously, it is not a realistic kind of universe, but th the emotions are very real, the emotions are very human even if they are wizards. Rose how do you explain this phenomena . It connects directly to i am not saying this because it presents culture i mean harry potter is as big in japan or england as it is in america so i will assume because it carries such a universal energy, that people relate to that. Rose there it is. Wow. Rose thank you. Thank you very, have yo very. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org oh, hi there welcome to my perfect Christmas Party the fun begins in two shakes of a cats tail. babbling so, stay sitting where youre sat, its time for christmas with the cat in the hat viewers like you, and you, and you, and you