You might have been more familiar with this chant/spell: “Expecto Patronum”. Yes? Sounds familiar?
Which is in Latin (if I’m not mistaken) and it’s one of that spells that any Harry Potter’s fans will vividly remember.

Well, I’m not here to discuss Harry Potter. (But yes, the new movie is out so go queue for the tickets at your nearest cinema.)

Without the author, you won’t even got the chance to get into this wonderful world of fantasy and wizardry. From the amazing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where these young children learn magic, then the game of Quidditch and the racing brooms, potions and spells, hexes and curses in words that’s familiar yet strange on your ears. It was all sprung out from the creative mind of J.K. Rowling and her road to success surely wasn’t easy.

Meet J.K. Rowling…

She wrote the first book when she was a single parent, taking care of her daughter and was living on state welfare support at the time. She wrote in local cafes when her child was asleep. But the idea of the story was already molded in her mind a few years back, she didn’t really know where the idea came from, but she began writing it immediately.
A lot has happened since then, her mother passed away, Rowling moved to Portugal, got married and have a daughter. But the marriage didn’t last long and she came to Scotland as a struggling single parent with her daughter. Rowling was even diagnosed with depression and contemplated suicide at that time. Surely the darkest period of her life.

When she finally finished writing the first book, it was submitted to twelve publishing houses and all turned it down. Not until a year later, an 8 year old which happens to be the daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury, a small publishing house read the first chapter and got very excited to actually demanded more from his father. Bloomsbury then agreed to publish the book, but the editor advised Rowling to get a real job because they could only get little money out of children books.

(Well, if you look back now… You wouldn’t have wanted to actually say that to her, would you? Had you now knew that the world of Harry Potter has now bewitched and bedazzled not only children but adults as well.)

She still had a long way to go, months later the book got its first award, she continued writing sequels and these sequels had won awards too. Then came the fourth book, which sales hit the roof, in the US: three million copies sold in the first 48 hours. Rowling was named author of the year.

Then came the fifth, sixth. More records broken, more awards given. The seventh which was the final, sold eleven million copies in the first day in UK and US.

With the amazing success of the books, Warner Bros. purchased film rights from Rowling for great amount of money.
In 2004, J.K. Rowling became the first person to become a billionaire by writing books. In 2008, the 144th richest person in Britain. She received honorary degrees from universities and even bestowed the honor as “Officer of the Order of the British Empire” (OBE).

What’s the secret?

I’d say…
“Nil Desperandum“:
Don’t ever give up.
J.K. Rowling’s rags to riches life should be prove enough and inspire us to live our life to the fullest and achieve our dreams…
The Latin proverb “Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo”: don’t give up, trust in God. God will show you the path…
Undeniably, her love for her daughter also took great part to make her not giving up because there’s a new life that solely depends on her to succeed.

“Libera Mentem“:
Set your mind free, be an open mind, know no boundaries, create (write, paint, compose, sculpt, construct, build) whatever it is that came flooding through your mind…
Let the magic flows through… Let the automatons, giants, ships, spaceships, flying saucers; or magicians, knights, princesses, and dragons inhabit your newly-created world and share them with the real world.
(Which reminded me of “Eragon” a fantasy book written by Paolini at the age of 15!)

Once you realize all that… Combine them with hard work, faith and dedication…

“Expecto… Maiestas“

Side note: Now less and less people are encouraged to be creative,
because it's far more easy and faster to imitate rather than to create and come up with something new.

Unrelated to creativity... but more related to the story... 
Once I attended a sermon discussing about hope and how the number of suicides are high nowadays.
These people should have looked up to the famous people who had suffered and never gave up hope.
The preacher then mentioned a novel author whom I didn't recognized as an example...
I was telling myself, he should have also mentioned J.K. Rowling,
all these young people must have known and more familiar with her and the Harry Potter series  
so there you go, it was my inspiration to write this blog post.

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