J.K. Rowling’s light at the end of the tunnel.
When we read stories about our heroes, we always assume they were heroes everyday. This is the Green Room where the lives of our favourite creatives—Writers, singers, artists, filmmakers and all in their glory—are stripped of hindsight.
Expelliamus!
And if you don’t know what that means, you probably had an African mother who didn’t let you watch Witchcraft. And what movie screamed witchcraft more than Harry Potter?
If you were ever an enthusiast, you probably did an online quiz to find what house you belonged to: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. Ironically, the writer of Harry Potter, J.K Rowling probably did not imagine that her book would gain such a fanbase or even become movies.
If you’re a writer, you would love to hear that Harry Potter started as a Daydream—The ultimate creative’s garden of Eden. Harry Potter, after that blissful daydream, was rejected by 12 different publishing houses.
Her early life was not a bed of roses either. Born to a middle-class family, her imaginative mind was seen as a phase rather than a treasure. What could it do to earn actual money?
Now fast forward to life as a teenager, she describes it as dreadful. Her mother was diagnosed with Sclerosis and her relationship with her father had begun to debilitate.
And what is worse—every creative’s nightmare—a corporate job! She worked with Amnesty International as a Secretary and was quite terrible at it, stealing time to write stories and stories. Does she sound familiar? (You should probably quite your job... Jokes please).
By the time J.K Rowling had gone through a marriage, a separation, a miscarriage and a child, she had written a good portion of Harry Potter. All’s well that ends well, I guess. Except that Rowlings survived on Government Welfare with her daughter. And as anyone of us would have probably had to go through in her circumstance, Rowlings fell into depression and suicidal thoughts.
It was with this experience that she dreadfully created the characters of the Dementors in the Harry Potter Series.
I’m not writing Rowling’s biography, this post is to make sure you understand that you can feel today like the worst thing alive; your blog post isn’t reaching numbers; your creativity is mocked and you’re honestly living in the worst years of your life.
This post is to make sure you know that if a depressed, poor, struggling, jobless, single mother could make it as a billionaire from writing some of the weirdest things (Did you even see Voldemort?), your creative consistency will definitely pay off. Even Rowling didn’t feel like a star on most days!
Have a great day, Superstar!