Rowling has said thatHarry Potter“simply fell into [her]head” and “all of the details bubbled up in [her] brain.” She“[had]never felt such a huge rush of excitement and [she] knew immediately thatitwas going to be such fun to write.”
Sounds like a fairy tale beginning to a fairy tale ending, right? And perhaps that’sall ordinary readers need to know about Rowling’s path to literary fame, but writers need to know more.
Writers need toknowthe not-so-glamorous version of what it was like to writeHarry Potter. Weneedto appreciatehow disciplinedRowling had to be to developher little idea into seven heftybooks. Wehave to knowthat shewasn’t lazily sipping mochas for two decades while jotting downa continuous stream of wordslike a literary Fountain of Youth.
All too often writers convincethemselves that they would write more if only they were more well known, or had more money, or had more time. But in the end, none of that is whatdefines a writer. A writer is simply someone whowrites.
BelowI’vecompiled the non-fairy-taleversionof the story behind the Harry Potter series.
Book One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Even though Harry Potter strolledinto Rowling’shead fully formed, shestill spent severalyears outlining the seven books, and then she spent anotheryear writing the first one,Harry Potter andSorcerer’s Stone.
Rowlingrewrote chapter one of Sorcerer’s Stoneso many times (upwards of fifteen discarded drafts) that herfirst attempts“bear no resemblance to anything in the finished book.” This was especially frustrating for Rowling because she was a single parent and her writing time was both limited and sporadic—entirely contingenton her infant daughter, Jessica.
Whenever Jessica fell asleep in her [stroller], I would dash to the nearest café and write like mad. I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.
Rowling had to deal with many other time-wasting nuisances, like re-typingan entire chapter because she had changed one paragraph, and then re-typingthe entire manuscriptbecause she hadn’t double-spaced it.
Rowling also struggledwith personal problems while writing the first book:
- the death of her mother,
- estrangement from her father,
- a volatileandshort-livedmarriage,
- a newborn child,
- lifeon welfare,
- and a battlewith clinical depression.
To top it off,Rowling’ssupport system was pretty much nonexistent. She struggled with suicidal thoughts and eventually turnedto therapy for help. Rowlingonce told a friend about her book idea and her friend’s response was cynical. Rowling said:
I think she thought I was deluding myself, that I was in a nasty situation and had sat down one day and thought, I know, I’ll write a novel. She probably thought it was a get-rich-quick scheme.
Once the manuscript was finally finished,Rowling went on to collect a dozen rejection letters over the span of a year before Bloomsbury Publishing agreed to pick it up.
Even with publication now on the horizon, though, Rowling was warned by her literary agent to finda jobbecause her story wasn’t commercial enough to be successful (“You do realize, you will never make a fortune out of writing children’s books?”). In fact, Bloomsbury’s expectations of the first Potter book wereso low that its initial print was only five hundredcopies—three hundredof which were donatedto public libraries. Rowling’s first royalty checkwas six hundredpounds.
A year later, she was a millionaire.
Book Two: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Both Rowling’s agent and Bloomsbury Publishing had to (happily) eat their words—Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stonewasso popularin the UK thatScholasticapaid an unprecedented $105,000 for the American rights to theseries.
Rowling, however, still faced major frustrations.
For one, she did not believe her writing success was permanent, so while writingChamber of Secrets, she workedasa full-time French teacher (and cared forher now-toddler daughter). It was during this time that she suffered from her first and only debilitatingbout of writer’s block:
I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn’t measure up . . .
Despite Rowling’s personal skepticism, other lucrative contracts rolled in after Scholastica. The resulting money pulledher out ofpoverty, but it also put incredible pressure on her “tofulfill expectations,” and furthermore, her sudden financial success resulted in a“tsunami of requests.”Everyone was asking Rowlingfor a leg up:
I was completely overwhelmed. I suddenly felt responsible in many different ways. . . .I was downright paranoid that I would do something stupid . . .
Book Three: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
ThesecondPotter book was even more successful than the first, and Rowling finally dove into writing full time with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Prisoner of Azkabanwas one of Rowling’smost enjoyable Potter books to write, butshe still had to work very hard. Rowling said in a letter to her editor:
I’ve read [Prisoner of Azkaban]so much I’m sick of it. I never read either of the others over and over again when editing them, but I really had to this time.
Rowling added in a later letter:
The hard work, the significant rewrites I wanted to do, are over, so if it needs more cuts after this, I’m ready to make them, speedily. . .
But if Rowling thought these rewrites for book three were difficult, she had no idea what she was heading into with book four.
Book Four: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Again Rowling churned out a book in a year, and again it was a massive best seller, but Rowling celebrated her success in a rather unexpected way:
The first thing that I did when I finished Prisoner of Azkaban was discuss repaying the advance for the [fourth]book. Yes, you can imagine. People were a little bit shaken . . . I said: I want to give the money back and then I will be free to finish in my own time rather than have to produce it for next year.
Rowling has been open about herstruggle to write book four, which nearlycaused her to have “a nervous breakdown”:
That was the period where I was chewing Nicorette. And then I started smoking again, but I didn’t stop the Nicorette. And I swear on my children’s lives, I was going to bed at night and having palpitations and having to get up and drink some wine to put myself into a sufficient stupor.
Rowling attributed herstressto thestaggering pressure she felt to produce another Harry Potter book worthy of global adoration:
I’m sure that I’ll never have another success like Harry Potter for the rest of my life, no matter how many books I write, and no matter whether they’re good or bad. I remember very clearly that I was thinking the same thing when the excitement over the fourth Harry Potter volume literally exploded. The thought was unsettling to me at the time, and I still feel that way today.
Rowling also struggled with her plot for the first time since starting the series:
The first three books, my plan never failed me. But I should have put [this]plot under a microscope. I wrote what I thought was half the book, and “Ack!”—huge gaping hole in the middle of the plot. I missed my deadline by two months. And the whole profile of the books got so much higher since the third book; there was an edge of external pressure.
Rowling faced“some of [her] blackest moments” with book four:
At Christmas I sank to the depths: “Can I do this?” I asked myself. In the end it was just persistence, sheer bloody mindedness. It took months. I had to unpick lots of what I’d written and take a different route to the ending.
Theworst rewrite for Rowlingwas one particularchapter in Goblet:
I hated that chapter so much; at one point, I thought of missing it out altogether and just putting in a page saying, “Chapter Nine was too difficult,” and going straight to Chapter Ten.
Not surprisingly, Rowling also struggledwith burnout:
Goblet of Firewas an absolute nightmare. I literally lost the plot halfway through. My own deadline was totally unrealistic. That was my fault because I didn’t tell anyone. I just ploughed on, as I tend to do in life, and then I realised I had really got myself into hot water. I had to write like fury to make the deadline and it half killed me and I really was, oh, burnt out at the end of it. Really burnt out. And the idea of going straight into another Harry Potter book filled me with dread and horror. And that was the first time I had ever felt like that. I had been writing Harry for 10 years come 2000 and that was the first time I ever thought, Oh God, I don’t want to keep going.
Book Five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Rowling stayed true to her word and went on vacation—kind of. She stepped away from the Harry Potter seriesto workon a completely unrelated book (which hasn’t been published). After ayearlongsabbatical, Rowling started onthe fifthbook,Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Rowling had writtenthe first four books in a blisteringly fast five years, but shetold her publishers she didn’t want a deadline with book five, especially after dealing with the plot problemsinGoblet of Fire. Herpublishers had no other choice but toagree.
Even then, though, Rowling still struggled to keep up.
She has said numerous times that she wished she had betteredited Order of the Phoenix:
I think[it]could have been shorter. I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end.
And it’s no wonder. During the two years Rowling wrote the 870-pagePhoenix, she also:
- got married,
- hadanother baby,
- foughta bogus plagiarism lawsuit,
- started severalcharity organizations,
- consulted forthe new Potterfilms,
- and ran around fulfilling herendless PR obligations.
Worst of all, Rowling was drowning in a never-ending deluge ofpaparazzi.
Rowling’sfamehad grown to such bewildering heights that the attentionhad become relentless. This was quite a shock forher, especially sinceshe had thought that her Harry Potterstory would only appeal to“a handful of people”:
Everything changed so rapidly, so strangely. I knew no one who’d ever been in the public eye. I didn’t know anyone—anyone—to whom I could turn and say, “What do you do?” So it was incredibly disorientating.
Thepaparazzi were digging through her garbage,hiding in her hedges, and camping out in front of her house. One reporter even slipped a note into her daughter’sbackpack at school.
It’s very difficult to say. . .how angry I felt that my 5-year-old daughter’s school was no longer a place of. . .complete security from journalists.
Rowling was “racing to catch up with the situation” and “couldn’t cope” with the loss ofher private life:
I couldn’t grasp what had happened. And I don’t think many people could have done.
Among the uproar,Rowlingwas expected to pull off yet another Harry Potter home run.
Book Six: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Again Rowlingexceeded all expectations,smashing publishing records left and right,but no time to celebrate—it was on to book six.
Rowling was pregnant with her third child while writingHalf-Blood Prince, but she wasn’t nearly as stressedas she had been with book five. In fact, she was so laissez-faire about it, she probably putsome fans in a panic:
I’m in a very lovely position. Contractually, I don’t even have to write any more books at all. So no one can possibly write that I have missed a deadline, because I actually don’t have a contractual deadline for Six and Seven.
Of course Rowling did write book six, whichwas “an enjoyable experience from start to finish.” Rowling’scritics, however, were now growing as vocal as her fans:
I found death threats to myself on the net . . . I found, well, people being advised to shoot me, basically.
Thepaparazzi problem was also spinning out of control.After the birth of two more children,Rowlingcouldn’t even step out ofher house without being stalked by photographers—she was“completely trapped” and felt like she was “under siege or like a hostage.”
Rowling went so far as to sell her house and move her family, and again she had to turn totherapy, as she had years ago when her Harry Potter ideawas in its infancy:
Sometimes I think I’m temperamentally suited to being a moderately successful writer, with the focus of attention on the books rather than on me.
Book Seven: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Even with enormously highexpectations, book six was a success, and Rowlingimmediately began working on the seventh.
Deathly Hallowswas the series finale, butRowling had many other responsibilities to fulfill besideswriting: being a mother to three children, giving interviews, overseeing the Harry Potter movies, and running her charities, to name only a few.
Ironically, Rowling’snotoriety and wealth had cut her writing timein half—fromfive days a week totwo and a half:
There are times—and I don’t want to sound ungrateful—when I would gladly give back some of the money in exchange for time and peace to write.
The media marathonhadn’t slowed down either, which wasexceptionally draining for her:
Fame is a very odd and very isolating experience.And I know some people crave it. A lot of people crave it. I find that very hard to understand. Really. It is incredibly isolating and it puts a great strain on your relationships.
One of the media’s particular criticisms of Rowling was her appearance:
I found it very difficult, when I first became well known, to read criticism about how I look, how messy my hair was, and how generally unkempt I look.
Rowlingworried about how such criticisms mightaffect her children:
Is “fat” really the worst thing a human being can be? Is “fat” worse than “vindictive,” “jealous,” “shallow,” “vain,” “boring” or “cruel'”? Not to me.
I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny—a thousand things, before “thin.”
Somehow, in the middle of all this cacophony, Rowling finished her seven-book Harry Potter series. After nearlytwo decades, it was over. Rowlingsaid:
I cried as I’ve only ever cried once before in my life, and that was when my mother died. It was uncontrollable. . .
Embracing the Journey
You just have to accept that it takes a phenomenal amount of perseverance.
—J. K. Rowling [Tweet This]
This post isnot about glorifying Rowling or pitying her. This post isabout learning to appreciate wherever you are in your writing journey.
It’s only human to think that the grass is greener on the other side, to think that if only youhad a certain amount of money or a certain kind of life, you’dfinallyget down to writing. But books aren’t written in a vacuum. Life doesn’t stop moving even forthe most famous and successful. The best time to write is now—because that’s the only timeyou’ve truly got.
