This is well worth 3 minutes of your time. If you’re a teacher, it’s worth sharing with your class.
This story takes place in an alternative reality…
The number 43 bus arrived and the lady showed her pass to the driver. He squinted at the picture, then the name, Joanne Katherine Rowling.
The doors swished shut, the bus pulled away and she stumbled towards a seat. The woman sat and watched the world go past. She was on her way to her perfectly nice office job. ‘JK’ as her colleagues called her, was a lovely team member. Not so good with numbers but pretty good with words.
JK’s life was perfectly fine but she had a permanent knot in her stomach – she couldn’t help feeling there was something missing. She sat in her usual seat and stared out of the window as the greyness of Edinburgh slipped by.
A few years ago, she’d started writing a book. It was about a boarding school for wizards and witches. The main character was a boy called Harry Potter, but she’d created all sorts of wonderful friends and enemies and had given Harry what she thought was a terrific back story. His mum and dad had died and he lived under the stairs at his auntie’s house, and then he got selected to go to this fantastic imaginary place called Hogwarts.
She remembered back to when she was figuring out the plot. JK had been absorbed in her writing. She’d spent whole days in the coffee shop, tapping away at her laptop. She’d mapped the whole thing out. Harry Potter was an arc of a story that would be at least half a dozen books. In her wildest dreams she even dared to imagine a movie.
But that was then, and this was now.
She stood and pressed the red button, signalling to the driver that this was her stop. The doors swished open and JK stepped out onto the pavement. She pulled her coat collar up and walked the final 50 metres to work. Her mind swirled with thoughts about Harry Potter. Maybe I should have tried a bit harder, she thought.
She remembered back to the time she’d shared her ideas with a friend. He’d just laughed. ‘Seriously, JK?’ he’d snorted. ‘Your hero lives in a cupboard under the stairs? And he’s not good looking, or ripped? I’m pretty sure that kids aren’t going to want to read about a kid wizard with spectacles.’
JK had been crestfallen.
And that was it. With her confidence gone, she’d shelved the whole Harry Potter project and had gotten on with her life.
The lift doors opened, she stepped in and the knot in her stomach tightened. It was a shame she’d shelved the Harry Potter series, but her friend’s advice made sense. Dreams are for dreamers, right?
At Art of Brilliance we love interaction, so here are some questions to ponder.
- Dreams are for dreamers, right?
- If you had an amazing gift to give the world, what might it be?
- What is ‘success’ for you?