By Bob Cox
For
the author of the Harry
Potter
fantasy series, life wasn't always gobstones and quidditch (fun and
games). Joanne
"Jo"
Rowling
managed to condense a lifetime of emotional and financial hardships
in seven transformative years. Before her first book was published in
1997, she was hit hard by personal and financial tragedy. During the
early 1990’s, she survived the death of her mother, who had battled
multiple sclerosis for years and a divorce from her first husband.
After the divorce, she was an unemployed single parent that relied on
state benefits to make ends meet.
During
those difficult years, Rowling saw herself as a complete failure. Her
marriage was in shambles and she was jobless with a dependent baby
girl (Jessica). Biographers have speculated that Rowling suffered
domestic abuse
during her brief marriage. Her estranged husband (Jorge Arantes)
traveled from their former home in Portugal to Scotland, seeking both
Rowling and her daughter. She obtained an order
of restraint
and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in
1994. Desperate for financial help, Rowling signed up for welfare
benefits. She described her economic status as being "poor
as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless."
During
this period, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and
actually contemplated suicide. Her illness later inspired the
soul-sucking creatures in her books known as Dementors.
Despite
all these difficult setbacks, Rowling described these challenges as
liberating and allowed her to focus on writing.
Rowling
got her inspiration to write a few years earlier (1990), while
on a train that was delayed for several hours from Manchester to
London. Five tumultuous years later, Rowling finished her manuscript
for Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
on an old manual typewriter, pecking away in a number of café's
though out the city of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The
manuscript was submitted and rejected by twelve publishing houses.
Rowling
refused to quit and finally got her big break a year later when her
book was accepted by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury,
a publishing house in London. Her advance was just £1500 (British
pound, which is the equivalent of $1.48 U.S. dollars) with 1,000
books in print. At that time, Cunningham advised Rowling to get a
day job, since she had little chance of making money in children's
books. The following year, Rowling got her second big break and
received an £8000 grant from the Scottish
Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. In February 1998,
the novel won the British
Book Award
for Children's
Book of the Year,
and later, the Children's Book Award. Later that same year, an
auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the
novel. The highest bidder was Scholastic
Inc.,
for $105,000. Rowling said that she "nearly died" when she
heard the news.
From
that moment on, Rowling has been riding high on a tsunami of success.
She would go on to write six sequals, with Harry Potter becoming the
best selling book series in history with over 400 million copies
sold. Her books went on to become the basis for a series of motion
pictures, which also became the highest-grossing
film series in history. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling
living author, with sales in excess of £238 million. Harry
Potter has become a
global brand worth an estimated $15 billion. Through
it all, Rowling has maintained creative control on the scripts with
final approval.
Despite
her dismal circumstances, Rowling found one thing to get truly
excited about. One thing to pour her heart, soul and imagination
into...her writing. Instead of giving up and laying down on the
tracks in front of the oncoming train that was the light at the end
of the tunnel, she gracefully moved to the side, gathered her courage
and leaped aboard the Hogwartz Express to experience the great
unknown. Today, Rowling enjoys living in a seventeenth-century
Edinburgh house with her second husband, Neil Michael Murray, along
with their daughter Jessica from her first marriage and son, David.
Her future appears brighter than a train light.
No comments:
Post a Comment