Endless Summer
Welcome dear readers!
This is the first newsletter I've ever written, and frankly, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I should tell you about. While my life often feels insanely busy, I can't imagine that many of its details would be all that interesting to anyone else! But I'll do my best to bring you up to speed on the highlights.
To start with, I think you're going to love my new novel, The
Last Song. It was a challenging effort for a lot of reasons, but I think the end result is a story that you'll remember for a long time. Like all my novels, it's a love story, but there's much more to it than that. It's a novel that explores the relationship between a father and daughter, it's a story of redemption and hope, and it ends in a way that you probably won't anticipate. It's also longer than any of my previous novels, hopefully not because I'm getting wordy but because the complexity of the story merited it. I hope you'll be as pleased as I am with it.
As you may know, I also wrote the screenplay for the film
version of The Last Song. Filming has already wrapped, and it's scheduled to be released in early January 2010. I've yet to see the film, but I'm hopeful that it will turn out to be a great movie. I've been lucky with the film adaptations of my novels so far, and while it might be easy to conclude that I'll love the film because I wrote the screenplay, in the end, a film has much less to do with the screenwriter than the director and the actors. Film is a director's medium, so no matter what is written, the film will ultimately reflect the director's vision. And chemistry - that indefinable on-screen magic - always comes down to the actors. Still, like I said, I've been lucky thus far, so I'm hoping for the best.
Dear
John, another film based on one of my recent novels, is
scheduled to be released the following month. It'll be
strange having two movies in the theatres at once, but exciting,
too. I haven't seen a cut of that film either, but I hope to preview
it around the same time that I see The
Last Song for the first time (probably this fall). I have seen
a secret trailer of Dear
John, though, and it looks really great. That book is a true favorite
among my fans, and I have a feeling that the film version will
capture what so many of you love about the book.
On another front, both The Notebook and A
Walk to Remember are coming out in Cliffs
Notes. If you're a teacher, and you'd like to use either of these novels in your high school classes, you'll be pleased to know there's also a companion Teacher's Guide that will help your students get the most out of reading the books.
As far as my ever-hectic personal life: my family has finally moved into our new house. It's been a long process, as I'm sure anyone who's built a house can attest. And no, it's not quite done yet. There are still some punchlist items to be completed in the interior, and the yard still has to be landscaped, but it's nice to finally be settled in our new home.
You may have noticed that I did a lot of work to update
my website, and there are a couple of new areas you might want to explore.
Under the About
Nicholas section, you will discover topics that interest me personally: Track
and Field and Epiphany. As some of you may or may not know, I've spent the last four years coaching track and field at the high school level, and the team we fielded last spring was amazing. At the high school level, we led the U.S. in seven different relays (something never done before), won seven national championships (something never done before), set three U.S. records, and one junior world record. I've included links to videos
of the races in the Track and Field section of the website, and among other things, you can see my oldest son, Miles, competing. There's also a section on The Epiphany School, a secondary school that my wife and I helped to found three years ago.
I point those things out because I think balance in life is important. Life is about more than just about work; it's about the things you love, and I wanted all of you to have the opportunity to learn a little bit about my own passions. In the long run, I think passions are what truly define us all.
Take Care,
|
