How J.K. Rowling Wrote Harry Potter While Broke and Struggling

What if I told you that billionaire JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, was so broke while writing the first book that she had to write in cafes because she couldn't afford to heat her apartment. Today, we're learning advancing expressions through Rowling's incredible rags to rich's story. You'll learn real vocabulary the native speakers actually use. Here's how it works. I'll read her story in two parts. After each section, I'll teach you the most important vocabulary and expressions, and then you'll listen to the whole story a final time without subtitles to test your comprehension. By the end, you'll know fascinating secrets about how Harry Potter was created and have powerful new vocabulary to sound

more sophisticated. Now, you should know this lesson comes with its own vocabulary flashcards covering all the most important expressions we'll learn today. Practicing with these is the easiest way for you to remember the new expressions forever and go from sounding like an English learner to an advanced English speaker. So, if that sounds interesting to you, simply tap the link down in the description below and you can start practicing with these vocabulary flashcards right away. So guys, I'm really excited about today's topic because just a couple weeks ago, I took a trip to Scotland and it was my first time there. And one thing I didn't realize was how important Edinburg, which is the city I was staying in, was to the Harry Potter

stories, as we're going to see in today's short story. But you can really breathe in all the magic when you're walking around the city. And also I got to do a trip to the highlands of Scotland with my mom. Uh and a lot of the sort of like landscapes and so on that they used in the movies were from that area. In fact, uh supposedly Hogwarts is based in Scotland. So there's like all these lakes and like very green mountainous landscape that completely, you know, you can just feel the magic of Harry Potter in the place and all this really fascinating history there as well as it was a really pivotal place for the UK as it was constantly uh in between battles uh against the English and Scottish.

All right, so let's jump right into today's short story with JK Rowling. Picture this. A struggling single mother sits in a cramped Edinburgh cafe. Her baby daughter sleeping in a pram beside her. With barely enough money for coffee, she scribbles on scraps of paper, crafting a story about a boy wizard. The other customers had no idea they were witnessing literary history. This was Joanne Rowling in 1994, worlds away from the billionaire author we know as JK Rowling. But how did she reach such rock bottom? and what extraordinary circumstances created the world's most beloved children's series. The story began in 1990 during an ordinary train journey from Manchester to London. When the train was delayed 4 hours,

frustrated and penless, Rley experienced something unprecedented. The characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger came plainly into her mind in what she called the most physical rush of excitement. Ideas came teeming into her head. From that moment, Rowling harbored ambitious plans. Seven books with the entire story mapped out. But life was about to deliver some devastating blows. Just months later, tragedy struck. On December 30th, 1990, her mother, Anne, died of multiple sclerosis at just 45. Rling described the grief as a paving slab pressing down upon my chest, a literal pain in my heart. This devastating loss would profoundly shape

her writing. Making Harry an orphan was her way of processing grief. If she hadn't died, there wouldn't be Harry Potter. Desperate to escape, Rowling moved to Portugal to teach English. There, she married journalist Giorgio Ranches in 1992 and had daughter Jessica in 1993. But this fresh start became another nightmare. Rowling's marriage turned abusive. The final straw came during a violent argument when Aranchi slapped her and threw her from their home without Jessica. She returned with police, collected her daughter, and within weeks they were flying back to Britain, carrying only a suitcase with the first three chapters of Harry

Potter. Arriving in Edinburgh in late 1993, Rowling was utterly destitute. Living on 69 weekly welfare payments, she described herself as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. 7 years after university, she felt like a complete failure. In her mouthwritten flat, Rowling also battled depression. This emotional turmoil would later inspire her darkest creations. The soul sucking dementors came directly from her depression experience. It's that cold absence of feeling, that really hollowed out feeling. All right, so in just a little bit, we're going to see how Rowling turned things around and was able to create one of the most famous stories of all time. But first, let's

jump into learning all of the key uh advanced expressions from the first part of the story. All right. So, we saw this line. A struggling single mother sits in a cramped Edinburgh cafe. Her baby daughter sleeping in a pram beside her. A pram basically is just the British way of saying a carriage, what we'd call a carriage in the United States. And this is the basically the basket with wheels below it where people put their baby and use it to transport them around. And she was in a cramped Edinburg cafe. Cramped is basically a small space that's crowded. So, for example, sometimes I have to travel on the metro here in Barcelona during rush hour. And boy, that gets really cramped. It's like terrible experience, especially during

the summer having strangers that are sweating on you and so on, as you can imagine. All right, so this image of her in a cramped cafe was worlds away from the billionaire author of Harry Potter that we know today, right? Worlds away just basically means that one thing is completely different from another thing. So, let me give you another example. Chinese food you get at restaurants in the USA is worlds away from the real deal. So that means that the type of Chinese food that we serve in the United States typically isn't actually anything like traditional Chinese food in China. And next we hear, but how did she reach such rock bottom? And what extraordinary circumstances created the world's most

beloved children's series? Rock bottom. We've heard this term a few times. You can think of it as like someone's lowest point that when they reach their worst points in their life where maybe they're depressed, they have no money, um they've been fired or they've completely failed an endeavor. That's rock bottom. It's their lowest point. And extraordinary circumstances just mean that something is very improbable. For example, it takes extraordinary circumstances to meet your life partner, right? It's really difficult to find someone who you fit with so well that you might want to get married to them. Okay. But on a train ride, Rowling experienced something that was unprecedented when the main characters of Harry Potter came clearly into her

head. Something is unprecedented. It just basically means that it's never happened before in history. So, for example, the AI revolution that we're currently experiencing in the world is something unprecedented. It's just been evolving so quickly, right? The technology is getting better and better by really by the week, right? So this is something that we've never experienced before in history. It's unprecedented. All right. Next, we heard that the characters came plainly into her mind in what she called the most physical rush of excitement. Ideas came teeming into her head. So these are just really nice, very uh descriptive expressions. So if

something is teeming, it's like full of something. We can use this in positive situations, you know, like you're you're teaming with ideas. Like the ideas are just your head's full of ideas. They're like moving quickly around and everything, right? You might have had this experience before, but you could also say, which maybe was the case for JK Rowling's apartment there in Edinburgh, that a maybe a place is teeming with rats or teeming with cockro cockroaches like any sort of pest like this. So, it's completely full of them, right? And a rush of excitement, rush, a rush of an emotion in the sense, usually a positive emotion is like all of a

sudden it comes in great quantity. So all of a sudden she just got super excited. She had this rush of excitement. But you could also say like for example when you go on a roller coaster ride at an amusement park you get a rush of adrenaline. Right? That's why people tend to like to go on these kind of rides. All right. Next we hear from that moment Rowling harbored ambitious plans. Seven books with the entire story mapped out but life was about to deliver some devastating blows. All right. So if someone is ambitious it just means that they have really big goals. They have big things they want to achieve. So, for example, Space X has very ambitious goals to create a colony on Mars. And this might even happen in

our lifetime. That'd be pretty crazy, right? Very ambitious. And her life delivered some devastating blows, right? So, blows. I believe this comes from boxing. It's basically like a punch. If someone, you know, someone makes a blow to your face, it's like they punched your face. Obviously, here it's being used figuratively. Uh, and devastating. We actually hear this a few times in the story. So something that's devastating has a huge negative impact. So we can use this like if something just destroys things, you know, it can be destroying things in your life, but it could also be like literally a devastating hurricane. You might hear about this on the news that uh takes out entire

buildings that floods places that causes people to lose belongings or even to get separated from loved ones to lose their life. And later in the story, we also heard a devastating loss. So that's another collocation you can hear and the devastating loss that she experienced would profoundly shape her writing. So profoundly just means deeply. So in a in a deep way. We have another really nice expression in the next part. The final straw came during a violent argument when Aranchi slapped her and threw her from their home without Jessica. So if something is the final straw, I believe this comes from a larger expression which is the straw that broke the camel's back. So camels used to be used

to transport things like straw. Straw is like what horses eat for example. And camels have a maximum load that they can carry, right? That they can physically support. So at some point if you're putting straw on, even though like straw weighs nothing, at some point one tiny piece of straw is going to be over the limit the camel can physically bear and it would break the camel's back, so to speak. We shorten this just to the last straw or the final straw. So, it's just basically when you're not willing to put up with something anymore. That's the final straw. Let me give you another example just to make this clear. So, for example, maybe you go to really horrible hotel room. Like the hotel room was

dirty, the Wi-Fi didn't work, and the restaurant was closed. But when they charged me extra for the towels, that was the final straw. I asked for a refund. So, hey, the truth is you've learned some useful advanced expressions already, like cramped, rock bottom, and teeming. But if you don't practice these, then poof, they'll disappear in just days or even hours. Want to actually use these expressions naturally when you speak English? If you want to sound confident, simply knowing them isn't enough. You have to practice until they become automatic. This is exactly why we created a set of flashcards for you, which is available for free on our app. The magic is in the science behind

it. The app uses smart technology, which brings back words for review right when you're about to forget them. It's like having your own personal English coach right in your pocket. Just 10 to 15 minutes a day and these expressions will be right at the tip of your tongue exactly when you need them. Super easy. No more I know that word, but I can't remember it moments. So, click the link down description below to get the real life app right now. Your future fluent self is going to thank you. But luckily, she makes it out of her relationship. She moves back to the UK. Arriving in Edinburg in late 1993, Rowling was utterly destitute. It's a really nice word. Utterly means completely, but it's

quite literary. People don't use it speaking so much, but if you want to like um have like a more powerful word than completely. Utterly is a good one. So, for example, Rowling probably felt utterly lost when her mother died. That's probably why she wanted to leave the country to get away from things that reminded her. And she was destitute. It means if someone's destitute, it means that they're very poor. They're unable to pay for even their basic needs. So, this was her case because like she couldn't pay for heating. She went to cafes because it was a place where she could work which was warm, you know.

Uh and maybe she also couldn't pay for electricity. Maybe she didn't have light at her house. She couldn't pay for water. So these are kind of like the basic things. If you can't pay for them, you're destitute. So not quite the same though as being homeless. But there might have been some silver lining. Silver lining means that there's kind of like a positive aspect to something negative. This emotional turmoil would later inspire her darkest creations. The soul sucking dementors came directly from her depression experience. It's that cold absence of feeling, that really hollowed out feeling. So turmoil is disturbance, confusion, uncertainty. So you might hear on the news, for

example, that there's uh in a certain country where there's a war going on that the war is causing turmoil. Like it's just chaos. It's like another word for chaos. So emotional turmoil is used in a figurative sense just to say that like your emotions are all mixed up and you know it's just causing you it could be causing depression or it could be just causing you to be feeling awful right and we can see how the dementors came from this part of her life right that the dementors much like depression cause a hollowed out feeling. So if something is hollowed out for example if you took a branch from a tree and you hollowed it out and put holes in it you could make a flute like the instrument a

flute. Uh, so if you think about yourself being hollowed out, it's like you have nothing inside. You know, you're just, you're probably exhausted, you're, you know, feel like you're emotionless, you're not sure what to do. All right, now let's move on to the final part of the story where we can see how Rowling turned things around, how she went from being at rock bottom to being one of the most successful women ever in the entire world. Right? So, let's have a listen. Despite everything, Rowling persevered daily. She'd wheel Jessica's pram to Edinburgh cafes, writing whenever her daughter slept. Her sanctuary was Nicholson's cafe, where she'd sit by the window, gazing at

Edinburgh Castle, a view many believe inspired Hogwarts. "The best place to write is in a cafe," she later said. "You don't feel like you're in solitary confinement." Contrary to myth, she didn't write on napkins. The book is 80,000 words. Though she did once create the Hogwarts houses on an airplane sick bag when caught without paper. After 5 years juggling single motherhood, teacher training, and writing, Rowling finished her manuscript. Finding a publisher proved daunting. It took agent Christopher Little a full year with numerous rejections. The breakthrough came when Bloomsberry chairman gave the first chapter to his 8-year-old daughter, Alice, who immediately demanded more. Rowling sold the rights

for about $4,000, a modest sum that would soon seem absurd. Publishers suggested using initials, worried boys wouldn't read books by women. So Joanne became JK Rowling, borrowing the cave from grandmother Kathleen. Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone was published in June 1997. When Scholastic bought American rights for $105,000, Rowling could finally buy her own flat in Edinburg. The transformation was meteoric from welfare recipient to published author whose work would sell 600 million copies worldwide. She described seeing her book in stores as an indescribable feeling of pride, close to seeing my daughter for the first time. Years later, she reflected, "Rock bottom became a solid foundation on

which I rebuilt my life. I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had my daughter, an old typewriter and a big idea. From destitute single mother to literary icon, Rling's journey proves our darkest moments can pave the way for greatest triumphs. Her story shows that perseverance, imagination, and refusing to abandon dreams can work magic more powerful than any wizard spell." All right. So, we can see in the end things worked out for her. That's just to say the least, right? So, let's check out all those advanced expressions we heard in that second part. So, her sanctuary was Nicholson's Cafe. I actually wasn't to this one cuz it doesn't exist

anymore, but I was to a place that was right next to there. So, it had very similar views and it really is very enchanting. So, we hear that cafe was her sanctuary. Sanctuary just as a refuge or a safe place. And I mean for her if she didn't feel so comfortable at home because she didn't have heat, didn't have electricity and so on, then literally it might have felt like a safe place where she could, you know, focus and write and, you know, have her basic needs met. And in fact, she said that the best place to write is in a cafe. You don't feel like you're in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is usually a punishment in prison. So if one prisoner gets in a fight with

another one, it's like quite violent, then they might be thrown into solitary confinement, which actually many studies have shown it's like one of the greatest tortures that a human can endure because we're just such social animals, right? So for her, maybe just writing alone at home too, like not seeing other people around her, it might have just felt like too much and not actually helped her do her most creative work. All right. So, it was a difficult journey, but after 5 years juggling single motherhood, teacher training, and writing, Rowling finished her manuscript. And finding a publisher proved daunting for her agent, right? So, juggling is literally this activity where someone throws various balls or

other objects into the air and catches them. Can be quite mesmerizing. It can be quite uh entertaining to see someone do this who has some talent at it. And figuratively, we use this a lot for like when you're um dealing with many different tasks, you know? So, like for her that she was kind of like almost had three jobs, right? Like being a mother, writing the books, and teacher training. So, she was trying to balance all these different responsibilities. She was juggling them. And we'll often hear daunting used in the collocation daunting task. For example, depending what country you come from, getting a visa to move to the United States can be quite a daunting task. So, it just means

that it's a huge challenge to overcome. So, for me, this next thing, it was crazy that she sold the rights there in the UK for the first book for just $4,000. I mean, that seems like pennies, you know, it seems like almost no money at all, just considering what a huge sensation uh the books became. But probably for her at that point, that probably was a huge amount of money. Uh, and it even says here, a modest sum that would soon seem absurd just because Exactly. it became absurd because of how much money she would make in the long run with these stories and with the whole franchise, right? Uh something that's modest, it's humble, you know? So, a modest sum means that it's a very

small amount. It's not much, right? But for her, it might have made all the difference at that point. And this is a collocation we can hear quite often, a modest sum. So, a small amount of money. All right. And just a couple more expressions to wrap up today's lesson. So, the transformation was meteoric. So meteoric comes from meteors, right? These are the objects that shoot through the night sky. When we use it in this sense, as an adjective, meteoric means that something is developing rapidly. So meteoric success or meteoric growth, it just means that growth or that success

comes very quickly. So it's a bit like this concept, I don't know if you've heard it, of an overnight success. We use this when it kind of seems like someone becomes successful all of a sudden, which it probably seemed the case for JK Rowling, but is the case for her and for most people. We don't see all the work that went into it. So, she was just years kind of like scraping together like trying to pull together whatever money that she could with like odd jobs to support herself and her daughter while she was writing the book, right? So, it wasn't the success wasn't actually that meteoric or it wasn't an overnight success, right? A lot of hard work and perseverance went into it. To give you another example, Sam Alman's

rise to fame has been meteoric since the launch of Chachabti. So this entrepreneur that very few people knew about now is on the news all the time. Right. And one of our last lines in the story, from destitute single mother to literary icon, Rally's journey proves our darkest moments can pave the way for greatest triumphs. So someone who's an icon is like a role model, someone that we look up to as a figure of success in that area. So obviously JK Rowling is a literary icon. She's someone that many other aspiring writers look up to. As an example, just to give another example in a different area, Messi is a soccer icon, right?

Like any young person playing football or playing soccer hopes someday they can be as successful or even just like a fraction of as successful as Messi has been. And a really nice last expression here, pave the way. So, this comes from pavement, which is basically when there's a road has asphalt or uh cement laid on top of it, you know, so that's easier for cars to pass over. Uh so, you can think about if uh if a way or if a road is paved, it's easier to go down. So, Rowling's darkest moments paved the way for her success, right? They totally inspired the story. So, even though it was really difficult for her, we wouldn't have Harry Potter without her having gone through all that suffering.

And before we wrap up today's lesson, I just wanted to share some thanks and love with one of our viewers and app users. So, the shout out goes to Dami who says that I can't believe I'm watching shows without subtitles now. Shout out to this app. A yeah, short and sweet. Thanks so much, Dami. That's really awesome. Like I love when I can actually hear from learners that the app is helping you to achieve your goals like watching series without subtitles or being able to have a confident conversation or use new expressions at work and so on. So it's really great to hear that you're seeing real improvement and that the app is helping. Awesome job, dummy. And we'd love to help you to

reach your English learning goals as well. I think that the app can help a lot by helping you to, for example, add all of these expressions that we've learned today to your long-term memory so you're able to use them confidently next time you get into a conversation. So, be sure to check out the app. It's free to get started. Just click the link down the description below. Picture this. A struggling single mother sits in a cramped Edinburgh cafe. Her baby daughter sleeping in a pram beside her. With barely enough money for coffee, she scribbles on scraps of paper, crafting a story about a boy

wizard. The other customers had no idea they were witnessing literary history. This was Joanne Rowling in 1994, worlds away from the billionaire author we know as JK Rowling. But how did she reach such rock bottom? And what extraordinary circumstances created the world's most beloved children's series? The story began in 1990 during an ordinary train journey from Manchester to London when the train was delayed 4 hours. Frustrated and penless, Rley experienced something unprecedented. The characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger came plainly into her mind in what she called the most physical rush of excitement.

Ideas came teeming into her head. From that moment, Rowling harbored ambitious plans. Seven books with the entire story mapped out. But life was about to deliver some devastating blows. Just months later, tragedy struck. On December 30th, 1990, her mother, Anne, died of multiple sclerosis at just 45. Rowling described the grief as a paving slab, pressing down upon my chest, a literal pain in my heart. This devastating loss would profoundly shape her writing. Making Harry an orphan was her way of processing grief. If she hadn't died, there wouldn't be Harry Potter. Desperate to escape, Rowling moved to Portugal to teach English.

There she married journalist Giorgio Ranches in 1992 and had daughter Jessica in 1993. But this fresh start became another nightmare. Rowling's marriage turned abusive. The final straw came during a violent argument when Aranches slapped her and threw her from their home without Jessica. She returned with police, collected her daughter, and within weeks they were flying back to Britain carrying only a suitcase with the first three chapters of Harry Potter. Arriving in Edinburgh in late 1993, Rowling was utterly destitute. Living on 69 weekly welfare payments, she described herself as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. 7 years after university, she felt like a complete

failure. In her mousridden flat, Rowling also battled depression. This emotional turmoil would later inspire her darkest creations. The soul sucking dementors came directly from her depression experience. is that cold absence of feeling, that really hollowed out feeling. Despite everything, Rowling persevered. Daily she'd wheel Jessica's pram to Edinburgh cafes, writing whenever her daughter slept. Her sanctuary was Nicholson's cafe, where she'd sit by the window, gazing at Edinburgh Castle, a view many believe inspired Hogwarts. "The best place to write is in a cafe," she later said. "You don't feel like you're in solitary confinement." Contrary to myth, she didn't write on napkins. The book is

80,000 words. Though she did once create the Hogwarts houses on an airplane sick bag when caught without paper. After 5 years juggling single motherhood, teacher training, and writing, Rling finished her manuscript. Finding a publisher proved daunting. It took agent Christopher Little a full year with numerous rejections. The breakthrough came when Bloomsberry chairman gave the first chapter to his 8-year-old daughter, Alice, who immediately demanded more. Rowling sold the rights for about $4,000, a modest sum that would soon seem absurd. Publishers suggested using initials, worried boys wouldn't read books by women. So Joan became JK Rowling, borrowing the K from grandmother Kathleen. Harry Potter and

the Philosopher Stone was published in June 1997. When Scholastic bought American rights for $105,000, Rowling could finally buy her own flat in Edinburgh. The transformation was meteoric from welfare recipient to published author whose work would sell 600 million copies worldwide. She described seeing her book in stores as an indescribable feeling of pride close to seeing my daughter for the first time. Years later, she reflected rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I still had my daughter an old typewriter and a big idea. From destitute single mother to literary icon, Rowling's journey proves our darkest moments can pave the way for

greatest triumphs. Her story shows that perseverance, imagination, and refusing to abandon dreams can work magic more powerful than any wizard spell. So, I love stories like this where we can see how someone, you know, went from their most difficult moments in life to ultimately being able to persevere, to not give up, and to reach their dreams. Uh just so inspiring, right? Because a lot of all of us go through those difficult moments and you know these kind of seeing that other people have been through these kind of things and they've been able to overcome them and be successful. It just really can help to give you the motivation that you need sometimes in your low moments to keep going. And of course that goes for your

English. A lot of times we want to give up learning a language. It's no easy task. There's good days where you know you have that fluent conversation. There's bad days where you feel like you're bumbling like a child. I know it happens to me in all the languages that I speak. So, don't give up. You know, take Rowling as inspiration to hang in there. Keep going. Keep pushing through because you're going to reach your goals. And remember that no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. A yeah, you've been studying English already for at least a few years, right?

You can understand most of what I'm saying. probably even read and write quite well. But do you ever feel like you've been stuck at the same level? Like you're not improving anymore? Well, I'm Ethan, your real life English fluency coach, and I totally get how that feels.