JK Rowling is one of the most successful authors of all time
Earning more money and getting more fame than any other author in history
she has gained a huge amount of influence and has built a fan base for not only her series but herself as well she has
made a series that is beloved by millions while most know the story of the Boy Who Lived
Many don't know the story of the woman behind this magnificent series in this video
I'm going to explain Rowling's early childhood and the journey that she took to write this series
I'll also touch a bit on what she's doing today
But this video will mostly focus on her early life and the origins of the Harry Potter series
Joanne Rowling was born on July 31st
1965 to Peter and Anne rolling
Joanne went by Joe for short and she shared a birthday with the beloved hero Harry Potter
Joe was supposed to be a boy who Peter and Anne were going to name
Simon John when she was born a girl her parents were very disappointed
They ended up treating her like a boy despite this dressing her and blue and I always have blue
Cuz he was the boy Jack. Yeah. She was the older sister of Diane Rowling or died for short as kids
They often wore similar clothes while Joe wore blue her sister wore pink showing that their parents treated dye like a normal girl
Which they did not do for Joe Joe knew that her parents were
Disappointed that she wasn't a boy and when dye was born
She asked them if they were disappointed about her and they said no this made Joe go upstairs and cry in a room the family
grew up comfortably money-wise
Her father was an aircraft engineer and her mother was a science technician who would later work at Joe's school
Joe grew up on a suburban street just like Harry her house even had a cupboard under the stairs
They lived just outside Bristol and later moved a few miles down the road
Their home was always surrounded by large fields and forests including the Forest of Dean the Forest of Dean
of course popped up a few times in the Harry Potter series first Dean
came here once mooned dad and
coincidentally the character that went there often is actually the character that Rowling identifies with the most but Hermione is an
Exaggeration of me so Hermione really did come from a very deep place inside me. Joe was always drawn to the forest
She used it as a place of shelter and safety trees the river
Everything this is a big reason why the Hogwarts grounds has such a vast amount of land dedicated to the Forbidden Forest
It's actually Joe's favorite place on the grounds both Joe and I often heard their parents recount the story of how they met at Kings
Cross station
Rowling said that she sees the station as a
Romantic place because of this and it's big reason why it plays such a big part in the series
Where would you say it away on it? Looks like Kings Cross station Kings Cross. Is that right?
Joe had died had a grandmother named Freda
Who were they greatly disliked Joe actually based Aunt Marge on Freda?
Good at my brother to keep you it had been straight to an orphanage ever being dumped on my doorstep brother Joe loved to read
And was very influenced by the book the little white horse
She enjoyed how much detail was in the book with the smallest?
Information such as what they were eating this of course inspired the many small details spread out through the Harry Potter series
The book also inspired Joe to write her own stories at the early age of six
It was called rabbit and it was about a rabbit named rabbit. She ended up writing a whole series of books about rabbit
Which Joe today admits were very dull. She also had a fascination with trains that she admitted made her a bit nerdy
This is probably one of the reasons why students get to Hogwarts using a train
Joe and I often got awful haircuts from their parents that Joe jokingly said should have been considered child abuse
This is another event that parallels Harry's story when Fernan would always caught Harry's hair terribly
If only Joe could grow her hair back
Overnight the way that Harry did Joe lived four doors down from a boy named Ian Potter who was a mischievous little boy
His antics greatly paralleled a hero from Rowling story
And she is admitted that she drew inspiration from Ian for Harry's character
Joe and Ian's sister Charlotte and Shannon would often play together
Dressing up like witches while ian would dress up as a wizard
They would make potions Joe telling them to get twigs to add to the concoction dough
What often read poetry to them as well?
Around the ages of 12 and 10 Joe and I were parts on cleaners of their church st
Luke's to earn extra pocket money during the winter the church would get freezing cold while they were working
Joe was the only member of her family to attend church services on a weekly basis. She was also baptized at st
Luke's when she was eleven today
Rowling struggles with religion and God she said she's often doubt written about a lot of things but does believe in God and also thinks
That there's an afterlife well in secondary school, Joe had a chemistry teacher named John nettle shit
She thought that he was a very unlikable man
and she would later take inspiration from him to make severus snape scare achter during rolling Steen's she got into very
dramatic gritty realism that was influenced by Barry Hinds
She also got heavily into Jessica Mitford after her aunt Lunt saw a copy of her
Autobiography Rowling went on to read all of her books and actually named her first daughter after the author
Jessica when Joe got older she became a little more rebellious
Often sticking her head out of her bedroom window to smoke
She would drop her cigarette butts on the ground outside her window and wonder dad asked about them
She said that people from the pub must be throwing them into the garden while she was young Rowling always felt like an outsider
one of her best childhood friends Shawn Harris changed that however
They both moved when they were 9 so both felt like outsiders finding comfort in each other
Rowling has said that this was a very important friendship in her life and has said that Shawn was a huge inspiration for Ron
White kids
When they got older Shawn was the first of Joe's friends to get his driver's license
He drove an old Ford Angela. There was turquoise and white sound familiar
The two often went on long drives together and would hang out under the bridge to drink and talk about life
Rowling felt that he was always there for her a trait that's very present in Ron's
Character John was actually the first person who she discussed a serious ambition to become a writer, too
He was also the only person who thought that she was bound for success
This meant more to rolling than she ever told him at the time at the age of 15 Jo's mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
At the time there were no drug treatments for this and Jo watched as her mother suffered through this illness
While in school Rowling had a teacher that she disliked intensely on sight this teacher ended up being the inspiration for Dolores Umbridge
Jo is made head girl during her time at school
Which is a big reason why she incorporated had boys and girls at Hogwarts one of her English professor
Steve Eddy described her as not exceptional but one of a group of girls who were bright and quite good at English
Rowling escaped her small-town life by attending the University of Exeter there. She got a degree in French and classics
She did what she needed to do to get through school and recalls doing little work
She said that she preferred reading Dickens and Tolkien than trying hard in school
Rowland got one of her sort essays published by the University marking the first time that she ever had a work published
After school Jo moved to London working as a bilingual
Secretary one day while she was on a four-hour train delay the idea for Harry Potter came into her head
She said it was the most physical rush of excitement that she had ever felt. I could see Harry very clearly this
Scrawny little boy. She had nothing to write a thoughts down for for hours
She had all of these ideas building up in her head as soon as she got home
She wrote all of her ideas down and she decided that she wanted to write a book after six months of writing
She had written the first chapter
155 different ways but most of them gave away too much
She said that if you put them all together
You would probably get the whole plot after six months of working on the series Jo's mother passed away
Finally losing her battle with her illness. She died. Never knowing about Harry Potter or her daughter's enormous success
To this day Joe's biggest regret was that she didn't keep her mother on the phone longer the last time that she spoke to her
After her mother died the essential story of the series didn't change but everything deepened and darkened at her mother's funeral
Joe's father didn't want Joe or Die to see her body
Joe really wanted to see it and didn't care how she looked because she thought it would make it easier
She deeply regrets following her father's wishes
Afterwards both Joe and I found their father very difficult
Joe had always had a weird relationship with her father and she said that it was far from ideal
She said she was very frightened of him
But tried desperately to get his approval and make him happy
This eventually came to a stop when she realized that she couldn't do this anymore
Ties were eventually cut between Joe and her father one of the main reasons for this was how unsettling it was that he moved in
So quickly with his secretary after his wife's death one huge reason why Harry has so many
Idealized father figures is because of Joe's difficult
Relationship with her own father after this Joe decided to move to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language there
She met and married
Jorge Orontes who was a television journalist the two decided that they wanted a child and on their first attempts Rowling had a miscarriage
They greatly affected her eventually. She successfully gave birth to their daughter who they named Jessica
Who as I said before was named after one of Joe's favorite authors, the marriage turned out to be far from perfect
There was some domestic abuse involved and Iran tasted a has admitted to slapping her very hard one day
He pushed her out of the house without Jessica and Rowling returned the next day with the cop
He was forced to hand Jessica over and Joe who had had enough after two years of their marriage
Left and went to britain Rowling sneakily put her failed marriage in Harry Potter when Trelawney says to lavender Brown
That thing you are dreading it will happen on Friday the 16th of October
This is the date of Rowling and Iran Tacy's wedding Joe knew that she had to rebuild both herself and Jessica a new life
But she wasn't quite sure how she was on the verge of homelessness and was relying entirely on benefits
She skipped meals to ensure that her daughter was fed one month
She couldn't even afford her own rent and had to borrow money from a friend at this point
She had fallen into a deep depression
It got so bad that she came to a point where she thought something bad would happen to Jessica the one good thing in her
Life just because everything else had gone wrong
She described her depression saying it's a numbness a coldness and an inability to believe that you will feel happy again
Or that you could feel light-hearted again all the color drained out of life
This turned out to be the main inspiration for the creatures that she created in Harry Potter called two mentors
Please describe the attack. Everything went cold
as though all the happiness that
Come from the world
Chocolate is even one of the few cures to make you feel better after an attack a calming chair for depression
Rowling eventually got into a routine. The only way to make Jessica fall asleep was to keep her moving
So Joe pushed her in a carriage until she fell asleep
And when she did she went into the nearest cafe and began writing her favorite cafe was called Nicholson's which was owned by her brother-in-law
She wrote huge parts of the book in this cafe
Joe wished to be published and wished more than anything in the world to be a writer it took her five years from when she
thought of the idea on the train to when she finished the first book Joe wanted to be a writer where the author knew every
Detailed everything mentioned in the books. She did this for the audience, but partly for herself as well
So this is the name of everyone in Harry's year and all these little symbols mean what house they're in how magical they are
What their parentage is she also made drawings of characters and drawings of how things worked just so she knew what it looked like
She also wrote the final chapter of the final book
This was her way of telling herself that she would get there one day. It was a way of saying to myself
well
You will get here
You will get to book seven one day the absence of any meaningful
relationship with her father and the slow loss of her mother were two of the most
Important influences and Joe's writing the chapter with the mirror of Erised said makes this very clear
When describing the scene she said there's never enough time which not only applied to Harry but herself as well
which goes back even further to her greatest regret of not having enough time on the phone with her mother the last time that she
Spoke to her when she finally finished the first book
She sent her manuscript into many different publishing companies Rowling believed in the story and thought that she gave it her best shot
Despite this however many publishing companies
Threw it on the rejection pile Bloomsbury publishing
Eventually picked it up after ruling told him the whole story that the books would tell and she asked how they felt about
Sequels after hearing the story and how all seven books would go Bloomsbury was on board for both the first book and the six sequels
Joe was ecstatic her lifetime ambition of being put on the Shelf finally came true the book slowly started to get more and more
Popular when the book finally made it to America
There was a bidding war between the American publishing companies
Scholastic ultimately came out on top paying over one hundred five thousand dollars this changed everything for Joe
She could now go full-time as a writer which is all that. She ever wanted after finishing the second book
She decided to dedicate it to her longtime friend Sean when Joe released the third book in 1999
She went from successful writer to international superstar
She was the first author to ever have the top three spots on New York Times bestseller list with this fame
Farik a many problems as well journalists began banging on her front door
Jessica was being scrutinized and hounded by journalists because Joe was her mother and worst of all Joe's dad had journalists at his door
Questioning him on why his daughter hates him this deeply hurt him and made Joe in her father's relationship
Even more complicated Shawn even had reporters knocking at his door digging for information on Joe
Rowling was also attacked by Christian groups claiming that her books were promoting the religion of witchcraft
Some parents in South Carolina even tried to get the books banned from the classrooms
People even went as far to say that she herself was practicing witchcraft and was getting death threats because of it
She also got hate for making her so-called children's books
So dark and full of death
one mother wrote to Joe saying that a writer of her ability should be able to make the ending of the books less dark and
Disturbing the mother then proceeded to say that she would be back in touch
If she did not make the sequels more
Uplifting Joe snapped and wrote back telling her not to read the rest of the books because she was writing at how she wanted
Joe felt uncomfortable by being followed by paparazzi the moment that stands out the most to her was when
Photographers were taking pictures of her on the beach when Joe released the fourth book of the series in 2000
It was another hit her book signings began to resemble concept with thousands of people
Attending Joe struggled with public appearances and speeches and didn't like this part of the fame
She was especially terrified to do book readings in front of a large crowd
Delighted and terrified to be here around this time Joe Matt Neal Murray and the two got married in 2001
Rowling was eventually approached to make her books into films and many production companies reached out Joe was very
Skeptical at first and was very picky. She eventually agreed to let Warner Brothers create the series
She worked closely with the screenwriter
Steve
Clovis and the two worked out a script that worked for both of them when Joe saw the set for Diagon Alley she began to
Cry because it was so perfect
Joe and Neal eventually had two kids
Mackenzie and David the parents worked hard to keep their children out of the spotlight actually pressing charges
Against the press for publishing pictures of their children the case that they unfortunately lost
Rowling went back to work on her beloved series writing the fifth installment
Many fans thought that she had writer's block because there was a gap of almost three years since the last book was released
Whereas the others came out a year apart
Rowling denied this and said it was because it was the longest book of the series and had many
Details that would lead to the final book
So she needed more time to work those plot points out when she released the order of the Phoenix in 2003
It sold five million copies in 24 hours making it the fastest selling book of all time
The half-blood Prince was released two years later it once again broke all sales records selling nine million copies in the first 24 hours
The half-blood Prince also received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards Rowling then began working on the seventh and final
Book of the series. She kept all details top-secret toward the end of the writing process
She locked herself in a hotel room to finish the book. Yeah
finished
Thank you it took rolling 17 years to write the series from start to finish
Joe personally loved the seventh book
Which she admitted was rarely the case when judging her own work when she released the deathly hallows it once again broke all records
Selling 11 million copies in just 24 hours after Joe finished the series she immersed herself in family life raising our kids
David and Mackenzie as well as Jessica
She said that she is now happier than she's ever been in her life
Rowling donates her vast amount of money to many charitable causes but most of all to multiple sclerosis research the disease that killed her mother
Although Rowling said that she was done with Harry Potter
She continues to run her website Pottermore releasing new information on the Wizarding World pretty often
She's also writing the screenplays for the new Fantastic beast films which are prequels to the original series
Rowling struggled through a lot during her life
She's admitted that the series was one giant attempt to reclaim a childhood
Writing was her escape from the real world her depression her failed marriage the press and so much more once her cream of hawkers
happy family both she and Harry got the happy ending that they deserved with the
Magnificent family the stories we love best do live in us forever
So whether you comeback by page or by the big screen Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home
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