J.K. Rowling Says She ‘Kept Losing Hope’ While Writing First Harry Potter Book
It took the controversial author seven years to publish the first book in the series.

Stuart C. Wilson/Getty
J.K. Rowling is opening up about the struggles she overcame while writing the first Harry Potter book. Rowling made the revelation in an interview with The Sunday Times. “I kept losing hope and putting it away, but that happened less and less as I worked on it. At a certain point it, or I, caught fire, and I stopped doubting,” Rowling told the paper. According to Rowling, the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, took seven years to get on the shelves. “I can remember feeling elated after writing the first Quidditch match, which flowed out of the pen and was barely revised afterwards,” Rowling added. These days, Rowling is less known for her writing and more for her politics, as she openly targets the trans community on her social media. Her sentiments have reached such a fever pitch that she is now the subject of a new play aptly titled TERF that imagines the three main stars of her movie confronting her about her rhetoric.
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