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she doesn't really know who he is. The initial idea can come from anywhere, but no book is just an initial idea, it's like a hundred different ideas that all have to fit together right before I start writing." As you may have guessed, Nicholas is an incredibly romantic guy. "There is no question about that. I think in those terms, and that's just who I am," he says matter-of-factly. So your gestures are just as big as the characters'? For instance, Landon helps Jamie complete the list of things that she'd like to achieve in her lifetime and Noah buys and fixes up the house Allie envisioned for them. "Yes. Oh, I have had some big gestures. Some of my stuff ends up in my books, but never the book to me, it's always me to the book. So, I do it first, like love letters. Some of these love letters have been written, drawn from letters I have written," he says with a smile. The road to becoming a novelist who has sold over 105 million books worldwide is an interesting story. Nicholas' real-life story sounds much like the premise of one of his novels: The town's handsome, record- breaking track-and-field star is injured his freshman year of college. When the doctor instructs him to take the summer off to rest and recover, he channels his energy into writing. He marries his college sweetheart, has children, and finally gets his third novel published, bringing him worldwide acclaim. Nicholas has always been a star. After graduating Bella Vista High School in California as the valedictorian, he went on to the University of Notre Dame with a full sports scholarship for track and field. "I loved sports. I was a good student and all that, but my passion in life was sports." When he found out he couldn't run after an injury, he was devastated. "It was very traumatizing for me emotionally because this was my big passion." That summer, Nicholas' mother became tired of her son moping around the house and finally said something about it. "She literally said, 'Well, don't just pout. Do something!' I said, 'What?'" [in a pouty voice.] "She said, 'Well, I don't know! Go write a book!' Like that. And I kinda said, 'OK.'" He laughs. Is there any one character of yours that you are most like? "All these characters have bits and pieces of me here and there, then of course they have bits and pieces of other people. The one that was probably easiest to craft was Landon in A Walk to Remember and that was because I had been a 17-year-old boy. When I'm writing Noah, I'd never been an 80-year-old man. Or if I'm writing Dear John, I've never served in the military overseas. So Landon was probably the easiest but he was his own character, right? So, I guess you might say a little bit of Landon, little bit of Noah, all those kinds of things, a little bit of all of them."