"It is impossible to live without failing at someting. Unless you live so cautiously you may not have lived at all. In which case, you fail by default."

An author’s past can really influence their writing. J. K. Rowling demonstrates this with her use of imagination when creating the Harry Potter series. The magic was tempted by sorrow and loss in the author’s life.

J. K. Rowling invented the wizarding world of Harry Potter while traveling back to London on a train. When the train was delayed, Rowling thought of the messy, black hair boy with glasses that would change some people’s lives. Of course Rowling has an extraordinary life now. Being the first person to lose her billionaire status by making a donation to charity makes it seem like her life must be carefree; however is was not always this way. Some of the true terrors in JKR’s life inspired the key points in the series like marriage, divorce, loss, and single parenthood.

While teaching in Portugal JKR met her first husband. They were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. They were later divorced 13 months later. JKR and her daughter left for Scotland to be near JKR’s sister. This all occurred 7 years after JKR had graduated from university. Rowling described herself as “the biggest failure she knew.” With no job, a failed marriage, and facing single parenthood, Rowling describes her failure as liberating. Rowling says this at a graduation speech at Harvard University:

“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
 – J. K. Rowling, "The fringe benefits of failure"

Later JKR also lost her mother. Who on multiple occasions she states she owes the entire series to her mother and the magical world would not have been created without her. It is rather touching when you read about the strong and touching relationship between Harry Potter and his deceased mother Lily Potter and you can only imagine what JKR was thinking while writing. After all this JKR signed up for welfare benefits and had absolutely no money and had been diagnosed with clinical depression and also contemplated suicide. However she had a daughter whom she loved more than life itself. Instead of becoming victim to the depression she decided to use it as an idea; with this dementors were created. Dementors are a soul sucking, black cloaked creature that takes away all the happiness around someone. An idea that had been made due to the horrors in Rowling’s past.

After JKR had been stripped of everything she had besides her daughter and an old typewriter, the Harry Potter series were created. Like the famous phoenix Faux in the series, JKR rose from the ashes with a new power and ignited as her new career of writing about a young wizard would help her on her way to becoming one of the most influential women in the entire world.