JK Rowling is one of the most well-known real life rags-to-riches stories out there. The British writer wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Edinburgh coffee shops, sometimes on napkins rather than paper, but is now worth close to a billion dollars, according to Forbes. However, what many may not know is that Rowling spent a significant amount of time in therapy both before and after the success of Harry Potter.
Now, as a JK Rowling new book is on the verge of being released, fans are waiting expectantly to read it, even though it is a far cry from the Harry Potter Series. Rowling's new book, called The Casual Vacancy, is about small town politics. While this is intended for adults rather than children, that might not be bad for Rowling, since fans of Harry Potter that were children when they started reading it, are now adults and the perfect age to read her new novel.
Rowling has admitted to spending time in therapy before the success of the Potter series, living in poverty and recovering from a failed marriage. She said that she also had therapy sessions after she was rich and famous, because the demands on her were so great. What most people don't realize is that when you are famous and rich, you likely get thousands of requests daily to donate to worthy charities, and for someone as giving as Rowling, who has actually been on the receiving end, it likely breaks her heart that she can't help everyone. "I felt I had to solve everyone's problems. I was hit by this tsunami of demands. I felt overwhelmed," Rowling said in an interview.
Rowling called her quick success with Harry Potter "incredibly disorienting," and said that she felt like she had hit "rock bottom" while writing the first novel in Edinburgh. At the time, she was living in a bedsit (in the United States these type of dwellings are called sleeping rooms) sharing a bathroom with several others and providing for her young daughter using government benefits.
It is easy to see why someone might therapy might help in a situation like this, and Rowling said she took advantage of it again after success. She told the Daily Mail, "I had to do it again when my life was changing so suddenly—and it really helped."
"For a few years I did feel I was on a psychic treadmill, trying to keep up with where I was," Rowling said. "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 disorienting."
How much of that therapy was responsible for the decision to write an adult orientated book no one really knows, but one thing is certain. If JK Rowling's new novel stays up to the standards of the Harry Potter series, and there is no reason to think that it wouldn't, she will have several more worldwide bestsellers to come. The JK Rowling new book release date is September 27th.
Photo Credit: Daniel Ogren & Austen Squarepants on Flickr.com
Gabriel Legend covers a variety of current event topics for Gather News, and writes horror fiction as well. You can follow him on Twitter (@GabeLegend) for the latest breaking news as it happens, or visit his personal website here.
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