Writer’s dream come true
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has just come out with her first “adult” novel, The Casual Vacancy, which is drawing intense media interest given the cult status Harry Potter enjoyed. By all accounts, though, this book is very different from Rowling’s earlier oeuvre.
There’s not a hint of magic in this novel; it is a coldly real work set in a village in England. Cold, hard reality was the stuff of Rowling’s life until it suddenly became suffused with magic. She was a poor, jobless single mother at the time she wrote the first Potter novel. The book didn’t find a publisher for some time, suffering a dozen rejections before it was finally accepted in 1996 by Bloomsbury, which ordered an initial print run of just 1,000 copies.
The rest, as they say, was history. In five short years, Rowling had transformed into a billionaire author and international celebrity, and life would never be the same again. But while her talent is undeniable, other things too played a significant part in this transformation. She had the gumption to stick to her writing through her darkest days. The success of the first Potter book also owes a lot to the fact it was picked up by Scholastic in America in 1998. The Casual Vacancy may not sell the way the Potter books did, but this may matter little to Rowling. She can truly live the writer’s dream, and afford to write just for herself, and her creative satisfaction!
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