JK Rowling rewrote the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book something like twenty times. She has said that if you read all drafts of her first chapter y

JK Rowling rewrote the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book something like twenty times. She has said that if you read all drafts of her first chapter you would know the entire plot. The story supposedly came to her in a flash "fully formed," I think on a train trip. And then she worked -- for a long time -- at trying to figure out how to tell that story well in written form. Before the Harry Potter books, writing for children's books hardly paid anything. The series was so good that it changed the industry. One of the things about good writing is that it's something even a poor person can do. JK Rowling was on welfare while writing the first Harry Potter book, living in some kind of government housing for poor people I think. She would take her small child for a walk in a stroller and when the kid fell asleep she would go to coffee shop or eatery owned by friends and sit and write and joke that "When I'm famous, your place will get famous as the place I wrote the book." Telling stories via film tends to take money for equipment if nothing else. Not paying independent writers adequately is not only a means to undermine democracy, it's also a form of class warfare.