Shelagh
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Joined : 11 Jan 2008
Posts : 2069
Location : UK
 |  Subject: How did it all begin for J. K. Rowling?  Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:07 am | |
| In the beginning there was a single mom:
| Quote: |
THE STORY of J. K. Rowling's near-magical rise to fame is almost as well-known as the characters she creates. She was born in 1965 at Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire -- a fitting birthplace for someone who loves strange but believable names. A writer from the age of six, with two unpublished novels in the drawer, she was stuck on a train in 1990 when Harry walked into her mind fully formed. She spent the next five years constructing the plots of seven books, one for every year of his secondary-school life.
Rowling says she started writing the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in Portugal, where she was teaching English and had married a journalist. The marriage lasted barely a year, but produced baby Jessica.
Leaving Portugal, she arrived in Edinburgh in 1993 to stay with her sister, Di, a lawyer. She had just enough money for a deposit on a flat and some baby equipment.
"I was depressed and angry. Angry that I had messed up my life and let my daughter down." She went to visit a friend of her sister's who had a baby boy. "His bedroom was full of toys," she recalls. "Jessica's toys fitted into a shoe box. I came home and cried my eyes out."
The tears did not last. In her books, Harry's bravery strikes a chord with children because he is full of anxieties but gets by on luck and nerve. Rowling agrees that she is much the same. "He has the will to get through," she explains, "and I never lost that. When you are really on your uppers, you don't sit there and cry. You try and get out of it."
However, stories of an impoverished single mother living in a rat-infested studio apartment, working as a substitute teacher and scribbling her way to wealth in an Edinburgh coffee shop, are journalistic inventions. "I am a single mom. I did and still do write in cafés, and I was broke," she says. "But the early stories neglected to mention that I come from a middle-class background. I have a degree in French and classics, and working as a teacher was my intended bridge out of poverty." And the studio? It was a mouse-infested two-bedroom flat.
At first, nobody wanted to publish Harry Potter. "The fact that it was set in a boarding school was very politically incorrect as far as most publishers were concerned," Rowling explains. She was told that the plot, like her sentence construction, was too complex. "That unnerved me. I knew it was going to be the shortest book of the series!" Refusing to compromise, she at last found a publisher, Bloomsbury, and, armed with a $12,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council, ploughed into the second novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. |
Read the full article here:
http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2001/02/potter.html
_________________
Shelagh Watkins
http://shelaghwatkins.co.uk/ |
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Pam
Five Star Member
Age : 42
Joined : 02 Feb 2008
Posts : 1358
Location : Nova Scotia, Canada
| | Subject: Re: How did it all begin for J. K. Rowling? Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:37 pm | |
| She and I actually have a lot in common. I think she is brilliant, and whether you like her books or not, buy in to the negativism or not (which I don't), it's hard to ignore the fact that she is a roaring success. Good for JK!
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Pam Robertson 
http://andthebandplayedonmylawn.blogspot.com |
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zadaconnaway
Five Star Member
Age : 61
Joined : 16 Jan 2008
Posts : 1933
Location : Washington, USA
| | Subject: Re: How did it all begin for J. K. Rowling? Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:46 am | |
| Yes, she has certainly done well. We should all have her good fortune! (Not to mention her fortitude and persistence)
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Zada Connaway
Mother's Journals: parts 1, 2 and 3 ISBN # 1-4241-6969-0
http://www.zadaconnaway.com/ |
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Jenny
Gold Star member
Joined : 11 Jan 2008
Posts : 403
Location : Sheffield, England
| | Subject: Re: How did it all begin for J. K. Rowling? Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:46 pm | |
| If anyone would like a copy of the programme that was shown at Christmas entitled "JK Rowling - A year in the life." I have it on dvd and would be happy to send a copy to anyone.
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Jenny
Writing as Victoria Howard
www.victoriahoward.co.uk |
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Pam
Five Star Member
Age : 42
Joined : 02 Feb 2008
Posts : 1358
Location : Nova Scotia, Canada
| | Subject: Re: How did it all begin for J. K. Rowling? Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:47 pm | |
| Thanks for your kind offer Jenny! I did get to see it and quite enjoyed it but never thought to record it.
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Pam Robertson
http://andthebandplayedonmylawn.blogspot.com |
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