Nicholas Sparks brought laughter and tears to a crowd of Southeast Missouri State University students and fans Monday evening at the Show Me Center as he spoke of how he came to be a novelist with 17 New York Times No. 1 best-selling novels and eight film adaptations under his belt.
Sparks' speech was the fourth installment of Southeast's 2013-2014 Speakers Series.
After writing two novels while he attended the University of Notre Dame on a full track-and-field scholarship, Sparks graduated and worked a variety of jobs when he was not accepted into any law schools.
He waited tables, flipped houses, appraised real estate, sold dental products over the phone, started his own business that eventually failed and sold pharmaceuticals.
A couple years after he became a drug rep, Sparks said he had a life-changing moment that was brought on by the airing of the last episode of "Cheers."
The show first had aired when he was 15 years old, he said, and 12 and a half years later it was going off the air.
Sparks said he began to think about all the things that had changed over the years. He had accomplished much -- graduations, a family, moving across country, owning a home, having a job -- but "something was different, something was missing from my life," he said.
Sparks no longer had a dream like he did when he was 15 and wanted to make it to the Olympics. Even if he didn't make it to the Olympics, the dream was still something that filled his soul, he said.
"I was not chasing any dreams anymore, and I didn't like that about myself," Sparks said.
He decided to give writing a real shot. If he failed after three tries, at least he would know he gave it his best, Sparks said.
His first published novel was "The Notebook," a story based on the love story of his wife's grandparents, which they shared with him the day after Sparks and his wife married. The grandparents couldn't attend the wedding because of health reasons.
The couple was a testament that true love can live forever, Sparks said, and their story contained the elements of newfound love, disapproving parents, separation and a letter written every day for one year, an engagement to another man and a drive back to a first love.
His wife's grandparents stayed together for the next 60 years.
"It was amazing to me that after 60 years of marriage, it was as plain as day that he loved his wife as much or more than I loved my wife of less than 24 hours of marriage," Sparks said.
Sparks wrote about the family story and sent query letters, or a pitch of his literary work, to 25 literary agents in 1995.
Only one agent responded to Sparks, and that response led to a pre-emptive offer from Warner Books to purchase the book for $1 million, and interest from New Line Cinema about making the book a movie.
Sparks told the story behind the next novel he wrote, "Message in a Bottle," which was based on his parents' tragic love story containing the untimely death of his mother, and, after finally moving on and opening himself up for happiness and an engagement to be married, the untimely death of his father.
Sparks' third novel, "A Walk to Remember," was based on his "baby sister," whose only wish when growing up was to become a wife, which she did before dying of cancer 15 years ago.
Aside from working on his next novel that is set to be released this fall, Sparks said filming for a movie based on his novel "The Best of Me," staring James Marsden, began Saturday, and filming for "The Longest Ride" will begin May 26. "The Choice" also is on the docket to be adapted to a film.
Sparks has two TV projects in the works, one for Lifetime TV called "Deliverance Creek," set in Missouri, and a TV series based on his novel "A Bend in the Road" that will "probably" be picked up by TNT, he said. Sparks also received the rights for "The Notebook" to be a Broadway show.
The next and final installment of the Speakers Series will be "A Conversation with Diane Rehm," of the public broadcasting program "The Diane Rehm Show," at 7:30 p.m. April 16 in the Bedell Performance Hall at Southeast's River Campus.
Tickets cost $10 or are free with a Redhawks ID, and they are available at the Show Me Center box office, the River Campus box office or at showmecenter.biz.
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