Nicholas Sparks 'At First Sight'

(CBS)  One of America's favorite authors, Nicholas Sparks, has just finished his next novel, "At First Sight."

"It's about new beginnings," he told The Early Show. And, just like in his book, he is offering help to a New Orleans family whose lives were shaken to the very foundation by Hurricane Katrina.

"There's no way you can help everybody but you do what you can do and this was the way that my wife and I decided to do it," he said.

Long before he became a world famous author, Sparks was a record-setting runner. With his good fortune, he donated a track to the high school where he's now a volunteer coach. That's how he met Karjuan Williams, the fastest high school 800-meter runner in Louisiana history.

Stranded with no money for gas on a highway in Arkansas, Karjuan's mother accepted help from someone she didn't know.

"For some stranger to care about me that much that's a blessing," Lee Williams said.

Sparks sent travel money to get the Williams family to a new home in North Carolina.

"They need silverware, they need a coffee cup, a towel, a wash cloth. I mean they literally had none of that when they arrived here," Sparks said.

They also needed a table where they can say grace, and a dresser for Karjuan's sister, Minnie, to put her Bible on, beside the book, "At First Sight," from a new friend.

"He has to have a great heart to do something like this for people he didn't know before - all expenses and everything," Minnie Williams said. "That has to be a miracle."

The doors to Karjuan's school are closed now. The New Orleans city track where he set school records is deserted.

But he managed to arrive with important medals in tow and a determination to make the Crescent City proud.

"I'm trying to just make it, make it happen this year, so I can say I'm from New Orleans," Karjuan said. "I went through something. I overcame."

"When I coach I say, 'Why do we run?' When I'm talking to my little team, I say, 'We run to be better people,' " Sparks said.

And as a writer, in his novel "At First Sight," he wants readers to experience the "being a couple feelings," when two people commit to everlasting love.

"People fall out of love and back into love. But in this one, I wanted to look at love that first year as a couple," he said. "There's quirkiness to the first year. It's one thing to date and another thing to be engaged and then married."

He said it's still hard to understand a woman's mind, and he's been married for almost 17 years. They have five children.

Sparks said the secret to a happy marriage is: "Two words: CHOOSE WELL. If affairs bother you, then don't marry someone who's going to have them. If you can't stand alcohol, don't marry a drinker. Just choose well."

Sparks said he believes that one of the reasons each of his books sells more than the previous one is that he varies his characters.

"I write what people want to read," he said. "But I vary it. I bring in new voices, new characters and new dilemmas. It's always like writing your first novel."

Click here to read an excerpt from "At First Sight."