By late 1994, a brief first marriage had ended and Rowling faced tough times as a single mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unable to afford a typewriter, she took her napping toddler to cafes, where she worked on “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in longhand.

“Writing novels is something you have to believe in to keep going,” Rowling said in 2000. “It’s a fairly thankless job when no one is paying you to do it.”

She advises young authors to be ready for disappointment. “You have to resign yourself to wasting lots of trees before you write anything good,” said Rowling. “That’s just how it is. It’s like learning an instrument.”