I was fantasizing about my Dog Cafe idea yesterday evening (for those of you who don’t follow my twitter obsessively, this is a coffee shop in New York City where there are five Golden Retrievers walking around for you to pet.) 

I thought, all of the Goldens should have these big bandanas with their names printed on them. One will be named “Oscar”

In my mind’s eye, an attractive 27-year-old woman came into my cafe, sat down to her coffee and said “HI OSCAR!” in the bright high-pitched voice we reserve for dogs and small children. 

I realized that I was acting out this fantasy while crossing Canal street on my way back home. I didn’t care. It was dark out and I pantomimed a big wave, smiled bright, and stage whispered “HI OSCAR!” 

This was incredibly fun. It hit me that part of the pleasure of dogs isn’t even having the dog there. A big part of it is just being super nice. 

Talking in a high pitched voice and smiling enormously is obviously part of the human experience. Why do we only share it with animals and stupid little kids?? It feels so good!

Next friend I see, I’m going shout their name in a baby voice and rub their freaking head. You’ve been warned. 

My friend Darren had met this guy through the Harry Potter fan community who was a yoga teacher, and he offered him a free yoga lesson. I’m kind of a stiff, creaky individual, so I came along to stretch myself out. 

At this guy’s place, we were confronted by a wall, floor to ceiling and corner to corner, lined with DVDs of every movie that had maybe come out since the invention of sound. The opposite wall was totally cleared of furniture, pictures and other wall accessories because this guy had poured his life savings into an HD digital projector that he used to watch said film archive. 

While we did the yoga he regaled us with stories of the solid three months he spent in New York camping outside of the Nederlander theater with other Rent heads so he could get $20 tickets to the musical—which he attended 5 times a week. 

When we left the guy’s house, we turned to each other and said, “That guy is INTO stuff. He. Likes. Things.”

I’ve always admired the kind of unabashed nerdism that it takes to spend 40 hours sewing a Kitara costume and then blowing your months salary on plane tickets to a con. 

Or the dedication of getting a character to level 60 in World of Warcraft and then intriguing your way up to a leadership position in a guild. 

Or playing an alternate reality Facebook game where you post drunken status updates as Haymitch. 

The closest I’ve ever come to super fandom was dressing up for Harry Potter release parties at Borders. I guess I also went as George Lucas to the Revenge of the Sith movie premiere, but I had a bad time, so it doesn’t count. I attended a panel on the Legend of Korra at C2E2 last year, but when I realized it was being run by a fan group, I lost interest. 

I have feverishly loved things, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Anne Rice’s vampire novels. But I can’t seem to take my love out into the world. I’d never get a blonde wig, dress up as Lestat and walk around New York. No matter how much I may want to. 

I fall in love with epic video games like Final Fantasy X and Skyrim, but something about their length and immersive nature ensures I never finish them. “Just one quick round of Wii Tennis,” I think, “and then back to Tamriel.” But by then all is lost. 

Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to be a nerd. I like stuff. But I don’t know if I LIKE. STUFF. 

And maybe it’s something that can’t be taught. 

Everybody’s got an idea, for a band name, a tv show, a comic book character, or a new line of plush dolls that Actually Sing You to Sleep! (I call them Luv-a-bye Babies) 

But these ideas just burn a hole in your brain if you don’t get them made and send them out into the world (a scary place, full of people that think your idea is dumb and say stuff like “That’s already a thing, Eric, they’re called SING-a-bye Babies, and they’re huge in Japan.”)

I pondering all of this today, because, believe it or not, I’ve actually been revising The Bully Book these last 6 months with my editor at HarperCollins, and have just THIS WEEKEND gotten final approval on the manuscript. 

So that means Bully Book is officially out my hands and it is now time to present ideas for what will be my 2nd book with HarperCollins. 

I’ve been developing these ideas for months (one of them is a Bully Book sequel idea, don’t worry) but I’m not sure how good they are, if my editor will like them, or if they have enough verve to make a full-length novel. 

So in honor of putting all these ideas together, I’m gonna make this upcoming month The March of Unused Ideas where I tramp out every idea I’ve ever had that’s not going anywhere. 

Here’s a sample: 

1. The Chair That You Wear: It’s a backpack you hang over your desk chair at school that contains two clamshell pads that fold down and make cushions on the back and seat of your chair. I was always uncomfortable in school desks and came up with this concept over 10 years ago. I’ve been talking about it non-stop since, but have never even sketched a design. 

2. Gunners: a TV show about competitive medical school students. Sort of a Grey’s Anatomy Junior. 

3. Oops, I Pooped!: A picture book about a little girl named Molly who keeps pooping her pants. “I pooped at school, I pooped at the pool…” you can see where this is going. 

Submissions welcome :)

It has been acres of time since I posted last, because as the dull blue background of this page can attest, I don’t really know how to work a tumblr blog—but I’m determined to learn.

The first thing I hear that all tumblr blogs need are words, so here they are!

As some of you may know from following my twitter, I have packed up my stuff and moved across the country to New York City. My reasons for doing this are mysterious even to myself. 

I’ve left a totally cool town (chicago) an enormous house with some of my very best friends, and a neighborhood where I was pals with at least 11 people living outside of my house. 

Add into this my penchant for very dense wood furniture (remember this monstrosity?) and you can see why this move weighed heavily on my heart as well as my back. 

But for the last 3 years, I’ve had this mental balancing scale with living in New York on one side and living some other place (los angeles, ann arbor, chicago) on the other, and New York was just always a little teensy bit on the light end. But a few weeks ago something tipped it, I’m not even sure what it was and I knew the thing to do was sail away. 

So now I’m in a new room in New York, slighter smaller than where I was living in Chicago, but full of the same heavy wood furniture. And I have got absolutely nothing to do except write another book. 

More on that process in blogs to come~~

Hey Friends/Family/Readers!

I’ve been waiting to make this announcement for a long time, but it’s finally official now. HarperCollins is publishing The Bully Book across North America in 2012!!!

Other countries will hopefully get the book too, we’re just not at that phase yet ;)

This has been an incredibly exciting few months for me, what with getting the book out online, then teaming up with HarperCollins, and going to China—it’s just been amazing. 

I really have to give a lot of thanks to the Starkids for this, both those in the company who so kindly made a platform for the book and the wonderful readers who supported the project and whipped up a tiny internet frenzy. 

I am currently deep in Revisions on the book with my HarperCollins editor, we’re hoping to make the book faster, funnier, stronger and, of course, we’re going to correct all those typos our Intrepid Readers (not so happily) found.

One of the great things about the HarperCollins deal is that they’ve given me a 2 book contract! So that’s going to either mean a sequel to The Bully Book, or another original novel to be released afterwards.

Now the publishing process can be painfully slow, so though we are all going to get a beautiful hard-covered, multiple-paperstocked, mass-marketed version of The Bully Book. It’s not going to come out until after Christmas 2012. More than a year away! I KNOW!

But I’ll be blogging the whole process right here, and in the meantime we can talk about adventures around Chicago (and the world!), Bully Book sequels, original ideas—anything that we want.

It’s gonna be a great year. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!