For years I've put off the seven books featuring "The Boy Who Lived" along with Ron and Hermione because of the films based on them. I saw the first movie - Sorcerer's Stone - in the theaters and really liked it. I attempted to start the books (there were, I think, four at the time?) but found that seeing the movie first kind of spoiled the experience of reading the book - ultimately, despite the book being a tad different and a bit more in-depth, the conclusion was the same. I saw the second and third film - Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban - and enjoyed them a lot due to the ever-darkening tones. As well I followed the coverage of each new book coming out, ending with the seventh. Films four through six I didn't see, but caught Deathly Hallows, Part One, on a bus trip to New York the day before seeing the final film in theaters. While there was a gap for me, I followed along pretty well with the last two movies and thought the conclusion to be very fitting; I particularly enjoyed the glimpse into the characters' futures in the end and (in the movie, at least) you get the sense that the experiences the triumvirate have been through hasn't completely left them. You could almost say the events of their time at Hogwarts scarred them in a way similar to the lightning bolt on Harry's forehead - always present.
Like I said, for years I put off reading the books; I was waiting for the impression of the films to wear off.
Last week I started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and have raced through it (I'm not a fast reader) and am nearly finished. While every now and again I get the sense of what I saw in that film (and it's been a very long time since I've seen it), it's a very refreshing, easy, brisk read. In a way I am glad to have waited and started them now - after all the hoopla about them has long ended. I can read them - regardless of knowing the ultimate ending and some choice spoilers (yes, I know what happens to Dumbledore) - for my own enjoyment and at my own pace without having any worries of running into fans spouting about them online like when they were brand new.
It would be unfair to critique Rowling's series (dare I call it her magnum opus so early in her career?), having only digested one of the books so far, but I find her a very witty writer who moves at a fast pace (the entire sequence with the troll inside Hogwarts lasted longer in the film than it does reading the 3 or 4 pages in the book). I am very excited to get into the remaining six. I'm also very interested to see why most of the other books are so much denser, given her tendency to be breezy and go from scene to scene very quickly. There must be a lot more plot involved. My hope is everything is balanced well and doesn't succumb under the weight of quantity over quality.
While reading Sorcerer's Stone, I thought about The Dark Tower series by Stephen King; I've only read the first installment - The Gunslinger - of that particular sequence of novels so far, but each of the works of King and Rowling got me thinking: Would I ever write a series? Do I have one long story in me to tell?
Right now...in short...no. But (!) that's not to say I wouldn't be open to doing one in the future. Where I am in my writing now is I like to tell simple, clean stories that don't leave the reader hanging after the end. The stories, to me, should feel like an experience, and deeply personal. To stretch it out over a series is beyond my comfort at the moment. I hope to someday be inspired by an idea that has the potential to take up a few volumes, but I won't worry about it if it doesn't happen. I'm very confident in what I have to say with each book and, believe it or not (if you go by the one published book per year rule), I have stories set in stone - and by that I mean in my notebooks - to tell for at least the next six years, and they're all single books. I'm always getting ideas and when I believe I have a good one I put it in its own notebook and add to it over time.
So no, no series in the works right now, but even though it may never happen that's not to say that I won't ever revisit a character - main or supporting - in another novel sometime in the future either.
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