William Nicholson is a screenwriter, playwright and novelist.
Recent Questions
Submitted by visitors to this websitePosted by Charlotte
July 1st 2009Dear Mr Nicholson, What is it that makes us pick up a particular book? What then persuades us to buy it? And what is it that makes us want to read THAT book before the hundred or so still sitting, emanating guilt, on the "to read" shelves in the corner? Whisked off on an impromptu trip to the Hay Festival, I vowed (perversely) not to buy any books, as I have far too many I should have read by now and never any time to do so. It was the title that caught my eye: "The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life". Yes, I thought, that sums it up. (Nice cover, too.) Then I realised I had met you once - sort of - when you and my friend Peggy addressed a meeting of former Christ's English students. I remembered you telling wry and hilarious anecdotes about the delights of working with a certain Hollywood actor with a penchant for (re)writing his own lines. And then I opened the book, read the first couple of pages, and found that you had taken one of the first and favourite quotations (by George Eliot) that I ever wrote into my "quote book" to introduce it. This was when I knew I not only had to buy it, but that I would read it before I read anything else. I was engrossed before I had left the tent. I still keep that "quote book": a memorandum of sentences, verses, poems, paragraphs that have struck me with particular force, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for that punch in the stomach of being so precisely *right*: of putting into words, succinctly, beautifully, a feeling or sentiment one instantly recognises, often with a sudden pricking of tears or an unexpected wash of nostalgia. Yours is the first book I have ever given up on as far as the quote book was concerned. I took to carrying a pencil around with me and marking sentences instead. There were just too many of them. I can never lend my copy to anyone else now; it would be far too revealing. Instead I have been recommending your book to everyone who will listen (including bookshops!) and buying it for my friends. You've chosen to do, and have achieved, something quite extraordinary, I think, in taking these "ordinary" lives, in which no highly dramatic events occur (does death count as high drama?! or does it depend on how it is presented? - perhaps I mean the latter), and making them *matter* - matter enough to us that we identify with each of the very different voices, see ourselves in them, care about them, value them, and are left reflecting on what this says about us as individuals, as a society, what it says about our lives. When recommending it to people I find that all I can really tell them about it is summed up in the title. It's about the secret intensity of everyday life. Yes. This is exactly, wonderfully, what it conveys. And I do have a question. Do you ever teach creative writing workshops, for example for the Arvon Foundation? I would be very keen to attend one if you do. Very best wishes, Charlotte
William Nicholson responded:
I'm really thrilled by your response to Secret Intensity - it's so exactly what I hoped to evoke. Maybe I dreamed you... So thank you so much for taking the trouble to pass it on. Your recommendations to others are very welcome - the only hope my book has of finding a wide readership is through word of mouth - press reviews are hard to come by. As for teaching creative writing, no, I don't do that. I'm not really sure that I'd know how. But mostly, my time is too taken up with earning a living (film writing) and working on my great love (novel writing). And with living, of course.
Posted by Charlie rauh
July 1st 2009William, I posted about sending the piece of music I wrote about The Society of Others and you said to send it to your agent Clare Alexander. I am sending it today, and will include my email and address. I know you are very busy, would you be able to contact me through some avenue to let me know what you think of it? thanks, Charlie
William Nicholson responded:
Yes. I'll respond after I get it.
The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life
Published May 2009The story starts with 42-year-old Laura, married to Henry, mother of two children, getting a letter from Nick, the former love of her life. Even the handwriting on the envelope brings back the intensity of that first and greatest love affair, over twenty years ago. She never knew why he left her. The wounds have never healed. Now he’s back, and wants to meet her again - and she realises she doesn’t want to tell Henry.
Each decision she takes has a ripple effect on her husband, her children, and all those she comes into contact with. In short chapter after short chapter we follow the chain of human interactions, shifting each time to a new viewpoint, discovering that our characters know nothing of what’s going on inside each other. They misread each other, fail to notice the dramas being played out before them, absorbed as they are in their own intense inner lives. Over six short days in Sussex we watch a dozen lives collide and transform each other, without any of the protagonists realising the true impact of their words and actions.
These are ordinary middle-class people, getting on with unremarkable lives. But for each one their life is a passionate drama in which they take the lead part. Running through each story is the question: how happy can I expect to be? Is what I’ve got enough? Am I leading the life I meant to live?
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