More Rowlingology

[snorkackcatcher]

Tchah. I step away from my computer for a few measly hours, and when I get back I find some woman has released a new book title and caused the net to explode. :)

Everyone else seems to be speculating about the possible significance of the title, a pursuit with highly variable chances of success -- most people seemed to guess correctly what "Order of the Phoenix" meant, few seemed to guess correctly what "Half-Blood Prince" meant. (For what it's worth at this stage, I'll go with the theory that The New Title refers to the places where the Horcruxes are kept. Currently if you Google the two-word phrase you get "No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found" -- just news results, which suggests JKR might have done the same thing she did with the word "Horcrux".)

So instead I'll go back to what I was doing a few days ago after the last announcement -- check back on the website for the sequence of announcements last time and try to work out the ETA for the book.

We had:

29 June 2004: Title of Book Six: The Truth

10 December 2004: No News is Good News "I have nothing noteworthy to report, because I have been spending nearly all my time sitting in front of my computer writing, re-writing and taking the occasional break ..."

22 December 2004: 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' to be Published 16th July 2005

16 July 2005: erm, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince published

19 December 2006: "The long lack of updates has been due to some very hard work. I'm now writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more ..."

21 December 2006: Book 7 title released (I won't spoil it, but I bet you all know it by now anyway!)

So take your pick. Last time, the announcement of a publication date seven months hence followed hard on the heels of a "still busily writing away" post. On the other hand, it was about a year between the announcement of the title and the publication of the book -- and perhaps more to the point, it was about six months between the announcement of the title and the announcement of the publication date.

On the theory that the publishers, if not JKR herself, will be wanting to spread the announcements out to generate maximum buzz, announcement of a publication date would seem to be some months down the line, with the date itself some months later. One hopes that they won't rush the book to the presses without thorough editing (this is after all the last chance to deal with any potential Flints old and new) although given Bloomsbury's recent profits warning that can't be guaranteed. A year from now would get the release date caught up in the Christmas rush. July 2007 would get the release date caught up in the OotP film rush. So what would a good guess be?

Well, given the significance of Hallow'een in the series so far (I might even go along with snuggle_muggle's theory that it was Harry's conception date), and the new title, I reckon sometime round about 31^st October 2007 -- ten months down the line -- would be a pretty good bet. There's a slight problem in that it's a Wednesday and they've preferred a Saturday for the last two, so how about 28^th October 2007 to catch the last of the Hallow'een buzz?

(A good target date for fanfic writers to finish any WIPs by. :D)


Lyrics: A quick summary -- the last one was of course that classic Fairytale of New York from 1987, by the Pogues featuring the late lamented Kirsty MacColl. Lots of people got it -- dolorous_ett, melusinahp, lupinslittlesis, jesspallas, and maple_clef.

So, carefully avoiding blasphemy by making a play on a carol to do with "annunciation", let's try this Christmassy film number:

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were near to us
Will be near to us once more

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow.
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow (1940s)

And the wishes expressed in the title to all of you!