J.K Rowling-The power of Willpower and Confidence
Sunday, October 30, 2016
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
A great writer, a modest woman and above all, a kind hearted woman. Rowling has always been and always will be the greatest writer of all time for me. I hope one day I will be following her footsteps to become a fictional writer, but whatever I do I will never become like her.
She is most famous for her series “Harry Potter” which made her the first billionaire by writing books, or in short, the richest novelist. She came up with the idea of Harry Potter in a delayed train from Manchester to London. Only after the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband and relative poverty, she was able to finish the first Harry potter book known as “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone”. This book had six sequels, the six books that would mark her as one of the best novelists of all time which finished with “Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows”
She had risen up from a very poor background living all her childhood in poverty. This is another example that tells us that it is not the money but the talent we possess that shows us what we become. The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK. She has supported charities including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain.
Her childhood was the main opportunity to get ideas for the Harry Potter book. Her headmaster was copied in the Harry Potter book as Professor Dumbledore, her friend’s car which became the Ford Anglia in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
Her childhood was unhappy in a very emotional way. She is not in speaking terms with her father till date. Her mother was suffering serious illness. Not able to spend time with either of your parents is like a curse for eternal suffering. She wrote her first story about a rabbit and read it to her sister Dianne.
She tried in the Oxford University in 1982 but was not accepted and then went on to do B.A in French and Classics in The University of Exeter. She recalls doing very little work there and preferred to read books from the Smiths, Dickens and Tolkien. She started writing the book in 1990 as soon as she got off from the train. Her mother’s death in December of the same year affected her life as well her writing, but she cleverly channeled her sorrow into the book where both of Harry’s parents die.
She then went to teach English in Portugal as a foreign language. She met a television journalist Jorge Antes and married him on 1992, but they separated on 1993, the year in which Rowling gave birth to child
Rowling considered herself a failure, her marriage had failed, she didn’t have parents and she had a child who was dependent on a jobless mother. She contemplated suicide. It is at these times that you should be strong and bold, the time when you think there is nothing else to lose, you have to hope, but it only isn’t enough, perseverance and confidence are the main components of success. Only fools would be dependent on luck to shine!
In 1995, she finished her manuscript for harry potter. She sent the manuscripts to 12 publishing houses and was rejected by all of them. A year later, she was given the green light to publish the book in Bloomsbury. It happened in a very sinister way, the editor’s (Barry Cunningham) daughter read the first chapter of the book and said she wanted to read the next even though the editor didn’t prefer it. Funny way to get a book published though! In 1997, 1000 copies were printed in which 500 were sent to libraries. These first 1000 books are worth THOUSANDS of POUNDS today! Wish I had one!
She continued her Harry Potter with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 1998.She got a Smarty’s book award for the Philosophers stone and then got one for Chamber of secrets too. In December 1999, the 3rd Harry Potter book came out and she won a Smarty’s book award for that too! She was the first one to win the award 3 times. Her fourth book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was withdrawn by herself to give others a fair chance. That woman’s a modest one, I am telling you now, mark my words!
She continued the harry potter book till a satisfactory conclusion was given to the readers. Her seventh and last Harry Potter book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was published in 2007 taking a full blast of 11 million copies sold in first day in the US and U.K breaking records in world known or unknown! Blimey! That much is almost more than all the copies sold by amateur writers put together! She didn’t stop her magical world just write there, right at this moment she is writing the script for the movie “Fantastic beasts and where to Find them” which is going to release this November and brace yourself for this one, she also wrote a 8th Harry Potter script book this year known as Harry Potter and the cursed child which revolves around Harry’s child Albas Severus Potter.
Fortunately, I was not the only one to like Harry Potter. People were so immersed in reading the books that they thought that a movie would be great to the fans. Well, that was a great idea because by the time the first movie came out in 2001. All the people in the Britain and the US were big fans. The last “book into movie” of harry potter was Harry Potter and the deathly hallows which was divided into 2 parts which were released in 2010 and 2011 respectively which brought in more than a billion dollars to the box office .
After finishing the harry potter books, Rowling went on to write books for adults which were famous too.
To conclude this people, I only have to tell you this. How much ever you suffer, how much ever poor you are, it doesn’t tell how much abundance of love you have. After all……
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
s