Inspiration? O_o

It's a Sunday and suddenly for no particular reason, I wanted to look up the biography of Nicholas Sparks.

I wanted to read how did modern authors, such as him, get started in writing novels for a living? Did they grow up knowing that this is what they wanted to do as a profession? Throughout their college career did they choose to major in English Language and Literature because they knew that it was the right choice for them (no matter what the criticisms for the major were)? Did they attend some prestigious college/university that would guarantee them success in their future, no matter what path they chose? This is what I wanted to figure out.

Nicholas Sparks is intelligent, there is no doubt about that. His novels have been to the New York Times Best-Seller List several times and some of his novels have even been produced into movies. Ironically, my favorite movie is A Walk to Remember, even though the book itself is rather predictable to me, but that's just probably because I watched the movie before I read the book.

Anyways Nicholas Sparks had a normal childhood, he noted in his biography that his family was not very rich, but he never noticed or felt that way. In high school, he says his brain somehow "kicked into high gear" and he started to get A's in all his classes, graduating his high school as its valedictorian and even getting a full track and field scholarship to the University of Notre Dame. And like me, he extremely enjoyed his busy, but good life in high school.

After his freshman year in college, he explained that he felt his life took a U-turn and things began to turn tough for him. He got injured and spent the summer healing his Achilles tendon. He recalled going a little crazy and was moping around the house for 3 months. It was his mom who first suggested to him, to do something besides moping, and she suggested writing a book.

And that is how he got started. His first book was titled The Passing was never published and neither was his second book The Royal Murders, which was written during the year of when he graduated from college with a degree in Business Finance(which no doubt spoke to me) and when he married his wife.

He decided to try another career and for a while he worked in various areas, ranging from real estate to pharmaceutical sales. It was in his mid-twenties life check that he decided to give writing another shot, and we're glad that he did because that was when he started the novel, The Notebook.

(You can read more about his biography on his official website)

Throughout Nicholas Sparks' life, he faced obstacles, but he never gave up or seem to have lost hope, it is actually inspiring to read all he went through and how he did managed to become successful in the end.

Maybe all we can really do is to really give ourselves a chance to try, a real chance, to pursue our dreams, so that in the end, even if we did not succeed we would have at least known that we tried. Life is a journey and I have heard that the best journeys are the ones when we go after our dreams. They often times become the most memorable.