Author Nicholas Sparks Almost Wasn't One: The “Counting Miracles” Writer Reveals How He Got His Start (Exclusive)

The bestselling author, whose latest book just got picked up by Amazon MGM Studios and hit the top of the bestseller list, owes it all to a sports injury

Nicholas Sparks has written 24 books — the latest of which, Counting Miracles, just hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list — many of which have been made into movies, TV shows and even a Broadway musical adaptation. But we may never have gotten The Notebook (the movie or the Broadway version), A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe or any of those heartstring-tugging books if he hadn't gotten injured as a freshman track star at Notre Dame University.

"Certainly going to Notre Dame changed my life in a lot of ways," Sparks tells PEOPLE, upon the publication of his latest book. "It was a great education for starters, but I went there on a track and field scholarship, and got injured my freshman year. While convalescing over summer after my freshman year at Notre Dame, I wrote my first novel, albeit one that was unpublished."

A few years later, he took a class that introduced him to the "power of voice" in fiction, and he took inspiration from such greats as The Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22 and Invisible Man.

"The power of voice to really make or break certain stories, [discovering] that led me to write a second novel, also unpublished," he adds. "But I certainly wouldn't be where I am; I would never have written The Notebook, probably, had I never gone to Notre Dame, suffered some setbacks with injuries, wrote, taken this class, wrote again. I have no idea who I would be."

Today, the former pharmaceutical salesman is a household name, with 130 million copies of his books sold worldwide (92 million in the U.S. alone) and translated into more than 50 languages. But putting out a new book into the world, he says, doesn't get old and neither does the chance to connect with readers, whether they're just finding his work or have followed his work for decades.

"I've had some people who've been to every one of my events since The Notebook, and it's really good to see them," the author says. "It's funny, I see some of these people more than I see some members of my own family; my aunts, or uncles, or things like that. So it's been a treat."

"What's also fun is, I'll have generations," he adds. "Just yesterday I had great grandma, grandma, mom and daughter all there and we did a picture of the five of us, and they're all holding a copy of the book. And I love that too. It's crossing generations, handed down or being handed up. I love that."

He finds inspiration for his next projects that way, too.

Related: Nicholas Sparks Says Gena Rowlands ‘Understood What Was at Stake’ with Her Role in The Notebook (Exclusive)

"Getting out, going on tour and meeting people, you hear things, you see things and they trigger thoughts in me," he explains. "I [met] a lady last night or the night before on tour, and she said, 'You know, you haven't done a love story between 50's and 60-year-olds recently.' And I said, 'You know what, I haven't,' and of course, it gets the wheels turning a little bit."

Those wheels turn pretty constantly in Sparks' head, who says it takes him about six months to write each of his books, between coming up with the main beats of the story, getting to know his characters, writing it all down and then "fixing the wrong turns" he inevitably finds himself making along the way. But every story, whether a novel, a screenplay or a limited TV series, has to pass what Sparks calls "the originality test."

"I spend a lot of time thinking of a story prior to writing a single word, and I try to keep it original," he says. "So if there's been something done in a movie, I won't do that in my book. So lots of ideas are rejected on the originality test."

Over two dozen books later, that keeps getting harder to do. "It becomes more and more difficult to come up with a very original, compelling story," he admits. "Early on, you can do anything. Twenty-five books in, you're like, 'Okay, what do I do now?' And so that's the challenge."

Another challenge? Finding — and reaching — his audience. That's why Sparks loves it when his books get adapted for the screen and stage, because it broadens the group of people who discover his stories.

Related: See Broadway's The Notebook Star Joy Woods in Emotional 'My Days' Video Directed by Ingrid Michaelson (Exclusive)

"I'm very happy about it, because if I can see the story, I happen to think the story is good, and I want as many people as possible to be familiar with the story," he explains. "A lot of people watch film or they'll tune into cable. They'll see something I've done on television, or they see a show on Broadway, and there they get to experience my story in a different medium. But it's still the story that I felt was worth telling in the first place."

And soon, people will be able to experience Counting Miracles in a new way: it's getting adapted into a movie by Amazon MGM Studios starring Reacher star Alan Ritchson.

"However people discover them, my hope then, after that, is that they enjoy them, that they feel it was worth their time to read, and ideally — in a perfect world — you also hope that they enjoy it so much, they tell someone else about it," Sparks says, of his goals for his work. "That's what I hope for."

Rest easy fans: Sparks has a few different projects in the works, both on the page and screen, in various stages of development. But he also has a new 18-month-old granddaughter to enjoy, whose name will appear in his next book, just like all his kids' have.

"I got books I have to write. I got all that good stuff I have to do," he says. "It's all good things."

Counting Miracles is on sale now, wherever books are sold.

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