David Nicholls: Writing new novel ‘completely terrifying’

It’s 10 years due to the fact David Nicholls’ novel One Day has become a publishing phenomenon – a phrase of mouth sensation that has offered more than five million copies round the arena. Five years later got here Us and now 5 years after that, he’s lower back with a brand new novel. But can he repeat the fulfillment with Sweet Sorrow – a tale of falling in love for the primary time?
Nicholls is beneath no illusion that whatever he does next, an e book he wrote a decade in the past “will always be the most popular and successful thing” he is known for.
One Day changed into a phenomenon that no longer simplest offered 5 million copies around the world however turned into also made into a film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess.
But its tale that followed characters from their graduation to their early 40s via journeying them every St Swithin’s Day, forged a long shadow, says the author.”The success of One Day made it very tough to write down,” he tells BBC News.

“Every time I sat at my table I idea, nicely this isn’t as desirable, this isn’t always as funny… It is not going to sell as many copies.
Finally, though, he thinks he has written a “higher” e-book. It is called Sweet Sorrow and it is a coming of age tale about locating one’s first love. It’s Nicholls’ 5th novel. The others, along side One Day, are Starter For Ten, The Understudy and Us.
But despite his substantial revel in, he discovered writing Sweet Sorrow “absolutely terrifying”.
“It does not get simpler with every ebook. I do not sense any more assured now than after I commenced.
“You’re revealing part of yourself. You’re drawing on some thing from deep internal and that’s exposing.”
Sweet Sorrow is narrated by means of Charlie, a person in his 30s looking returned on a single, lifestyles-changing summer, whilst he becomes sixteen.

Nicholls said he desired to “try to don’t forget how it felt at sixteen, attempt to seize that at the web page, the sort of dizzying exhilaration and confusion of all of it”.
But Nicholls is 52 and admits he became “aggravating about authentically portraying what it feels like to be sixteen”.
“I suggest it is a long time in the past and I’ve continually notion the further you break out from your early life, perhaps the greater distant your experience.”
Nonetheless, even though he has in no way kept a diary, he says he has a “bright recollection” of that time in his existence. “It’s tough, it’s difficult, you experience lonely.” Not that he became a rebellious youngster.
“I was pretty a sort of nerdy, disciplined, conservative kid. I wanted to get clearly accurate examination consequences. I desired to do nicely. I turned into very rarely badly behaved. I was quite diligent.”
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The novel additionally explores mental illness. Charlie’s father has despair and the e-book examines the impact on both of them.
“The ebook is not specifically autobiographical however it’s extremely personal and heartfelt,” says Nicholls.
“You draw on things that you’re feeling very profoundly and for my part and matters that affect you very strongly, without recreating whatever from actual existence. So there is very little within the novel that actually happened. But there are lots of things inside the novel that preoccupy me, that occupy my mind continuously.”
Sweet Sorrow is about in 1997- a time while “no person become truly organized to call and withstand and address” depression. Nicholls thinks that “is many human beings’ revel in then and now”.
“Now I think human beings are a lot more open to talking about their intellectual health… And there’s much less of a taboo,” he adds.
Nicholls is aware of he’s “lucky”. He has enjoyed the kind of fulfillment that most authors can most effective dream about. His books have been published in forty languages. His novel Us, the observe-as much as One Day, became longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.