Not really, unless it’s spending an afternoon surrounded by books and a convention center full of people who write and read them.

I spent Sunday afternoon in just that kind of book bliss, at Wordstock, Portland’s annual homage to literature in all its forms.

True confessions: I missed the big names, which you can read about elsewhere, including appearances by Jennifer Egan, Ursula Le Guin and Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone and one of my new favorites. Follow this links for the Oregonian’s coverage of Le Guin.

Instead, I used the time to catch up with some of Portland’s own.

Here’s an update on the city’s literary scene direct from the floor of the Oregon Convention Center:

1. Take your pick of writers’ spaces – The Writer’s Dojo, a North Portland co-working space for writers founded by Jeffrey Selin, is still going strong. Writers can pay $85 a month for unlimited use or $25 to visit once a week, with discounts available. Because it’s shared, the space is great for working on fiction or other long-term projects, not so much for hard-core reporting or anything that involves a lot of phone work, Selin says. If you’re doing historical research, the Oregon Historical Society is free and open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with reference librarians on call to provide whatever assistance you need. Other writing spaces: The Writer’s Attic (see more about The Attic Institute below); the Sterling Room for Writers at the Multnomah County Central Library; and the Oregon Writer’s Colony’s Colonyhouse , a log-cabin retreat for writers in Rockaway on the Oregon coast.

2. Reading Local Portland gets a facelift – Reading Local Portland, a website devoted to all things literary in the Rose City just got a facelift – and can I say, it looks amazing. It’s easier than ever to find out about local authors, readings and other events. There are also directories of authors, editors, publishers, bookstores, libraries and more. Blogger Gabe Barber, who runs the site, says he’s picked up a handful of sponsorships from area businesses, including Broadway Books, and is on the lookout for more.

3. Writing classes galore – Writers of all experience levels looking for help with fiction, nonfiction, memoir or poetry projects can choose from variety of classes, workshops and writers’ groups, many of which were at Wordstock. The Attic Institute is offering more than a dozen classes during its autumn term including one-day or multi-week courses on point of view, fairy tales, poetry, getting published and novel writing; see the complete list on their website. Willamette Writers also is offering a number of workshops this fall, including “Kick Your Writing Out of the Nest” and “Kickstart Your Writing.” The group has five chapters throughout Oregon, many of which host monthly meetings with guest speakers. Find out more on their website. Like to cruise? WW president and playwright Cynthia Whitcomb is hosting a 2012 writing cruise of 12, 14 or 26 days with daily classes and critique groups. Email her for a brochure: cwhitcomb@aol.com.

4. Help for your ebook design – If you’re working on an ebook – and these days, who isn’t? – you’ve got plenty of resources to draw from. At Wordstock, I talked to several Oregon-based companies that offer design, editing and distribution for authors working in digital formats, including Digital Bindery and Bookbyte Digital.

5. YA authors in abundance – Maybe it was because my 10-year-old tagged along, but there appeared to be a larger than usual representation of books for young adult (YA) and middle-school aged readers. According to a few authors I talked to, most YA books today have female protagonists and are aimed at girl readers – not great for parents like me with sons who are avid bookworms. We did find a few exceptions. One was author Lisa Nowak, there to support her auto-racing YA book, Running Wide Open. We also met Dale Basye, who’s currently discussing movie rights to his Heck series (subtitled, “Where the Bad Kids Go” – check out the website for the catchy theme song). Basye shared a booth with friend and fellow YA author David Michael Slater, who describes his six-part series that starts with The Book of Nonsense as a DaVinci Code for kids. (Portland Westsiders, Book 2, The Book of Knowledge, even features Gabriel Park!)

6. Vampires still rule – During the few hours I was there Sunday, the biggest audience congregated to hear about vampires, and why six years after Twilight, stories of preternatural characters are still hot. That was also evident walking through the exhibit aisles, with many local, small press publishers offering stories in that genre.

7. Donate books to soldiers – A Vancouver, Wash., nonprofit, Books4Charities, is teaming up with Boy Scouts and local churches and companies (US Bank, Umpqua Bank, Mattress World) to collect and donate books to troops overseas and soldiers recuperating at veterans’ hospitals. The group accepts new and used books and cash donations to subsidize shipping costs. Get more information on their website.

I got hooked. I read at lunch. I read instead of watching TV at night. When I finished a book late one night I sneaked into my son’s room to get the next one, so anxious to keep reading I couldn’t make it until the next day.

After two months of total Harry Potter immersion, I finished all seven in the series, then found myself scouring author J.K. Rowling’s official website and blog, and fan sites like MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron and watching documentaries to learn more about the woman behind the story and the publishing phenomenon.

Rowling’s success isn’t news to Harry Potter fans. Even before I read the books I knew the highlights: poor single mom gets inspired, sells first book, goes on to become one of the most-published authors ever, and possibly the richest. But I didn’t know much about Rowling’s writing process, which is worth sharing with anyone who makes a living with their words.

Here’s what Rowling and my Harry Potter experience taught me about writing:

1. Persistence counts. Rowling got the idea for the Harry Potter in 1990 and spent the next 17 years working on it before finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007. Seventeen years – that’s as long as it takes a kid to go from kindergarten through high school.
The takeaway: You may start out loving a project but the day may come – days, weeks or months into it – you’re so bored, frustrated or fed up you want to scream or put it away forever. But look what can happen if you gut it out.

2. Think things through. Rowling wrote in the biography on her website that she was on a train when the idea for Harry Potter “fell into my head.” She didn’t have paper or pen, so for the four-hour train ride all she could do was think. She says her forced rumination could have saved the series: “I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them.”
The take away: Don’t be too quick to get something down on paper. Think about the structure, the concepts, the conclusions and the way you want something to play out before committing it to paper.

J.K. Rowling. Photo: EPA

3. If the story’s good enough, the writing can be secondary. Face it, Rowling isn’t Hemingway. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone isn’t Beowulf. The writing in the first books in the series was downright pedestrian. But with that story, who could resist? I couldn’t.
The takeaway: Got a good story to tell? Tell it. If you write enough, you’ll get better on your own. Rowling did in her later books.

4. Go for it. Rowling was a struggling single mom when she started Harry Potter. She had no clips, no publishing industry connections, no platform.
The takeaway: It takes persistence, passion and a little Harry Potter-style bravura to believe in yourself enough to take on the publishing world as an novice writer – which may explain why many beginning writers flock sell themselves short by working for a pittance for less-than stellar publishers and websites. Could someone replicate Rowling’s rise to author stardom given what it takes to get a book published today? I’d like to hope so.

5. Write when you’re on. Rowling likes to write through the night, or in cafes with just enough people and music to get lost in. When she was finishing “Deathly Hallows” she checked into a hotel room so she could write the ending with no distractions.
The takeaway: You might not be able to afford a hotel room or pull an all nighter, especially if you have kids to get off to school the next morning. But you can structure your work day so you’re writing during your peak energy time, whenever that happens to be.

6. Don’t be afraid to make things complicated. The Harry Potter series is a thicket of characters, subplots and themes – all in what are supposed to be children’s fantasy novels.
The takeaway: Give your readers – even young ones – credit for their intelligence. Don’t dumb down your ideas, or your writing.

7. Leave stuff out. In 2007 British documentary on Rowling that re-aired earlier this month when movie version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince opened, the author shares about details of her characters that never made it into the books, including back stories and what happens in their lives after the books ends.  The tidbits either didn’t fit into the plot or weren’t interesting enough to be included (although fans live for this kind of stuff).
The takeaway: Pick the most telling details, the juiciest quotes, the most spot-on examples to tell your story and leave the rest out, especially if – unlike Rowling – you’re writing to a specific word count.

8. Write what you love. Rowling obvious loves her Harry Potter universe – she wouldn’t have drawn up the family tree that British TV documentary shows with details of who Harry, Ron and Hermione go on to marry after the conclusion of the books.
The takeaway: Enjoy what you do and how you do it, otherwise, why do it at all?

9. Be good to your people. Rowling blogged during and after writing Deathly Hallows so readers could find out more about her and the books. Besides book signing and official appearances, she also did Q&As with the people who run her fan sites.
The takeaway: We live in an age of interactive media. If you’re writing you need some kind of relationship with your readers, whether it’s on a blog, Twitter, book signings or all of the above. Depending on what you do, you can use the interaction to shape what you write, or build an audience for your next project.

10. It’s OK to goof off. After she gave up cigarettes, Rowling took up Minesweeper, the game Microsoft bundles with Windows, when she needed a writing break. She got so good she even brags on her blog about her expert-level times.
The takeaway: If Rowling can play mindless computer games for a little mental R&R, it’s OK if you check Twitter or Facebook during the work day.

If you want to be a reporter, you have to read the news. That used to mean reading a newspaper every morning, or even two or three. Now you can get your daily dose of news online. I’m agnostic on that point, as long as you read.

To be a good writer, you’ve got to read good writing. I read The New Yorker because I love the story mix, You never know what you’ll get from one week to the next, but there’s a 99.9 percent chance you’ll be captivated by a story on a subject you never realized could be so fascinating, or even existed.

Right now I’m reading two of my favorite authors. One is Anne Lamott, the dreadlocks-wearing, born-again, liberal writer from California’s Marin County who gained attention in 1993 with “Operating Instructions”, her hilarious, soulful account of the birth of her son and their first year together. I’m listening to Lamott’s book “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith” on CD. Listening to Lamott’s voice is like listening to a sermon: soothing and spiritual and good in small doses, a perfect companion for afternoon carpool rounds.

The other is Susan Straight, an ex-newspaper copy editor and current college professor who lives in southern California’s dusty Inland Empire. I first discovered Straight when my old book group “I’ve Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots”. I’ve also read “Highwire Moon”, which was a National Book Award nominee. Now I’m reading “A Million Nightingales” and it promises to be as good as the others.

It’s a coincidence that I’m reading both of these authors at the same time. Apart from gender and geography they don’t have a lot in common. But each does have a distinct and authentic voice. They sound so much like themselves. Because their books read so well, they make achieving that seem easy. But getting to that place requires enormous effort and practice.