Before becoming a famous writer with a famous novel, J.K Rowling experienced countless failures, was stuck to the point of depression, and once wanted to commit suicide.

J.K Rowling – author of the Harry Potter series was honored as the second richest woman in the field of entertainment arts according to Forbes magazine in 2006. In 2007, she was rated as the richest woman by US Entertainment Weekly magazine. one of the 25 artists of the year.

The resounding success of the famous fantasy work helped J.K Rowling become a female billionaire with a fortune of nearly 600 million pounds in 2013.

However, few people know that the richest female writer in England experienced a poor childhood, her mother was seriously ill, had disagreements with her father, and later had miserable days because of her unemployed, abusive and successful husband. Single mother struggles to earn every penny to raise her children.

Poor childhood, isolated friends

J.K Rowling’s real name is Joanne Rowling, she was born in 1965 in Yates district, Glouceshire city, Scotland.

From an early age, J.K. Rowling showed off her literary abilities by regularly composing fairy tales about characters such as elves, dwarfs, fairies… However, also because of her outstanding talent, J.K. Rowling became a strange child in the eyes of her teachers and friends.

When Rowling was 9 years old, her family moved to the countryside of Church Cottage, Wales. At school, where her mother worked in a laboratory, teachers often complained about Rowling’s ability to concentrate because they saw her absent-mindedly listening to lectures, only engrossed in thinking and composing short stories. about a world that isn’t real.

One teacher even criticized Rowling in front of the whole class, saying: “You’re smart. That’s right. But your grades are never very good because you don’t stand on the ground like us normal people. You sit.” in the clouds!”.

At the end of that class, a group of female students gathered around to tease Rowling, causing her to get angry and attack the group of female students. But the weak Rowling was pushed hard against the wall by the female students. An unhappy childhood was once described by Rowling: “My childhood was not happy at all. My mother was seriously ill. I was so discordant that I couldn’t talk to my father.”

During her young years, Rowling had to go through many disadvantages when her mother was seriously ill and father and daughter were always arguing.

In 1982, she graduated from high school and boldly applied to Oxford University in the hope of pursuing her passion for writing literature, but unfortunately was rejected. This caused her to collapse, close her book and put her love of writing aside.

Rowling’s parents advised her to study something more practical than literature, like economics or languages. Finally, Rowling studied French and classical literature at the University of Exeter.

She shared: “I was hoping to go to Oxford to get to know progressive people. But when I went to Exeter and met a few people like me, I found it less boring.”

After graduating from the University of Exeter, the idea of ​​Harry Potter came to Rowling quite unexpectedly while she was waiting for a train to go from Manchester to London in 1990.

Notably, what she created in her famous works was largely taken from her own real-life experiences. However, in December 1990, Rowling’s mother, Anne Rowling, passed away after 10 years of illness.

This event greatly influenced the writing process of Harry Potter. This is also the reason why Joanne carefully describes Harry’s loss in part 1 (Harry’s parents were murdered by the Dark Lord Voldemort when Harry was only 1 year old) because she understands that pain.

Depression, deadlock due to broken marriage, hardship of being a single mother

A difficult, isolated childhood was not the most difficult time in J.K Rowling’s life. Her life began to fall into disrepair when she married her boyfriend Jorge Arantes in 1992.

After Rowling gave birth to her first daughter in 1993, her marriage began to have many conflicts: Rowling had a miscarriage, her husband was unemployed, gambled, and drank. Jorge often beats his wife.

Finally, they separated on November 17, 1993, 13 months and 1 day after getting married. On their last day together, Jorge slapped Rowling very hard and kicked her out of the house at 5 am.

In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter Jessica moved near her sister’s house in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jorge followed her all the way to Scotland. Panicked, Rowling asked for a quarantine order for Jorge. Finally, Jorge returned to Portugal. The two officially divorced in August 1994.

It was at this moment that she realized she turned out to be just a failure: no family, no job and no money and struggling to take care of her 2-month-old daughter.

“I think it’s fair to say that seven years after graduating, I failed miserably, by any normal standards. A very short marriage had collapsed, and I was unemployed, became a single mother, and was as poor as could be in modern Britain, short of being homeless.

The fears my parents and I had for myself have come true, and by any normal measure, I am the biggest failure I know,” she shared. in his commencement address at Harvard University.

The deadlocked life made Rowling depressed and even thought about death. “At that time, I was a single mother, unemployed and seemingly the poorest of those who were not called homeless in the UK,” she shared.

However, her young daughter is a strong motivation for her to continue living. During this time, Rowling also realized she was not as alone as she thought. She was cared for by her sister and enthusiastically helped by social welfare workers.

To earn money to support her children, Rowling worked tirelessly day after day for nearly 3 years in a row. Finally, in 1995, the first volume of the Harry Potter series was completed.

After receiving very positive feedback from a test reader of the first three chapters named Bryony Evens, Christopher Little Agency decided to become Rowling’s representative. They submitted her manuscript to 12 different publishers but none accepted it.

They told her that the children’s fiction novel was not attractive to readers and had no economic value.

Becoming a legendary writer and a wealthy British female billionaire

After being rejected by 12 publishers, Rowling’s chance came when the director of Bloomsbury publishing house accepted her manuscript on the grounds that his 9-year-old daughter liked them very much.

Although the book will be published, Rowling’s representative advised her two things: one is that Rowling should find a job because living off children’s books is impossible, and two is that Rowling should find an impressive pen name. Rowling chose for herself the pen name J.K Rowling. At the end of that year, Rowling was sponsored with 8,000 pounds to continue her writing career.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury publishing house printed 1,000 copies of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. 5 months later, the book was awarded its first prize: “The Nestle Smartie Book Prize”. In February 1998, the book was awarded “The Book of the year”.

Until decades later, Harry Potter is still among the best-selling fantasy novels of all time.

The success of Harry Potter and the movie adaptation of the same name helped Rowling from a poor single mother to a rich British billionaire. Looking back at past difficulties, Rowling recognizes herself as a failure, but the bitter failures make her stronger and fight like she has nothing to lose.

“Maybe you will never fail like I did, but in life, failure is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless we live cautiously.” to the point where we can consider ourselves as having not lived – in which case, our entire life is already a failure.

Failure taught me things about my self that I couldn’t have learned any other way. I discovered that I am stronger and more disciplined than I thought; and also know that I have many friends worth thousands of gold,” Rowling shared.

The success story of the female writer born in 1965 also shows the world the lesson of relentless effort and always pursuing passion.

“If people ask me about the cure to happiness, the first thing is that you like to work, the second thing is to find someone who can pay you for it. I was very lucky, my writing also brought money,” she said.

Success depends on persistent effort as well as quality of work. Be steadfast in all your pursuits, put in the work and discover the unbelievable sides of yourself!