WHAT? JK Rowling got totally sick of Harry Potter

Potterheads the world over are going to go nuts for the non-Harry Potter, but still very, very important JK Rowling: A Bibliography 1997-2013, a 544-page tome dedicated to all things Potter and JK Rowling. The author, Philip Errington, really did his research. He compiled emails and conducted interviews — and he uncovered some surprising new facts that everyone in love with the Harry Potter universe will want to know.

For example, JK Rowling was sick of the whole thing by book three.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. She was actually just sick of the extensive (and numerous) rewrites she had to do on Prisoner of Azkaban to get the story just right.

During this period of rewriting and getting sick of her own character, she wrote in an email to her editor, Emma Matthewson. “Finally! I’ve read this book so much I’m sick of it, I never read either of the others over and over again when editing them, but I really had to this time. If you think it needs more work, I’m willing and able, but I do think this draft represents an improvement on the first; the dementors are much more of a presence this time round, I think.”

She even worried she would have a hard time pretending to enjoy the book when she did readings on the promotional tour. “I am so sick of re-reading this one that I’ll be hard put to smile when it comes to doing public readings from it,” she wrote, as quoted by Errington. But perhaps the feeling will have worn off by next summer,” she wrote.

Since Prisoner of Azkaban is pretty universally loved and often cited as a series favorite from fervent fans, it’s safe to say that the (apparently quite tiring) work was worth it. Plus, as bummed as we are to hear that JK Rowling got a little sick of her own story, it’s a nice reminder that she’s just a human like the rest of us and not some unshakable goddess of all things writing.

(Image via here.)