Major Events in Nicholas' Life to date
There were not many major events in Nicholas life that were negative but there were 3 main events first being the death of his mother Jill in 1990 in a horseback riding incident. This happened only 6 weeks after Nicholas and his wife Catherine married. She was only 47. The second unfortunate happening was that when studying at the University of Notre Dame, which Nicholas received a scholarship for his track accomplishments. At the end of a successful season on the track during his freshman year an Achilles tendon injury forced him to spend the summer recuperating. During this summer he wrote his first book, that was never published. The third event which occurred was when after 6 months, beginning in June 1994, Nicolas had written his first book The Notebook which then in a short amount of time he went from an unknown writer to having a book deal. Though his triumph was turned into devastation when his father Patrick was killed at the age of 54 in a car accident. Nicholas who was grieving turned to writing for comfort, creating a story inspired by his parents relationship, this book is called Message in a Bottle.