Unlikely Place for a Eureka Moment
JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter, stuck on a delayed train between Manchester and London
“It was extraordinary, because I had never planned to write for children. Harry came to me immediately, as did the school and a few of the other characters such as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost whose head is not quite cut off. The train was delayed, and for hours I sat there thinking and thinking and thinking … The irony is I almost always have pen and paper; I write all the time. And on this one occasion when I had the idea of my life, I didn’t have a pen. For four hours my head was buzzing. It was probably the best thing, because I ended up working the whole thing out before I got off the train.”