I just got back from LeakyCon 2011, and I had a magical time. The staff was certainly not prepared for 3, 500 attendees; the registration lines were an absolute disaster. But it was truly a spiritual experience to be with people from all over the world to celebrate the inspiration we all found in a young man who never let us down.
And the yearning I felt about the story, which once made it so real, has finally transformed into conviction. A story as great as Harry Potter is simultaneously inspiring and discouraging to a writer. But I have found myself in Potter and now the image is so quintessential that I trust my story completely. I have found myself in burning eyes. I experienced, as John Granger explained in his stunning lectures at the conference, a Resolution of Contraries. I write from a jacket hood with strings attached.
When Harry asks his mother if she will stay close to him, she says always. And I believe Harry will always stay close to us. Like Esther Earl's memory, Harry can continue to inspire us all. Just because he's in our head does not make him any less real, in fact, it does the opposite. So I'd like to remind my fellow LeakyCon attendees and Harry Potter fans:
This star won't go out.