Today I wanted to start by sharing something that has the potential to scare off half my readers who aren’t already aware of this little fact: I am Catholic.

I can promise you that am not interested in converting anyone to anything, and there will not be a sales pitch for cleaning products at the end. I just wanted to share where I’m coming from and relay a neat story. However, please be advised that the Internet is a big place and you’re free to surf elsewhere if you are uncomfortable hearing viewpoints that may be different from your own.

Whether it be good, bad, or ugly, it is impossible to not have a opinion of the Catholic Church. I certainly have had my share over the years, with many being in the bad or ugly category. Most of the issues I have (and I suspect I am not alone) are with the actual PEOPLE in the Church. They can be idiots. Stubborn, misguided, hypocritical idiots.

Then again, so can I. And so too were all twelve of Jesus’ best friends, at times.

But I like to think we are blessed idiots. Every last one of us, Catholic or not.

I have long been a fan of the rich history and beautiful traditions of the Church, especially after I have taken the time to push past the stereotypes and learn about the origins and meanings behind them. In the last few years, I’ve developed a particular fondness for Mary.

You know, Jesus’ mom.

Lots of people think Catholics worship Mary. We actually don’t. (We “venerate,” which is different.) But there is no doubt, we do love us some Mary. Just like Jesus did. Because she is the best human example of what it truly means to love God. And also, JESUS’ MOM. We often ask for her support in our prayers because Jesus has a habit of listening to her.

Again, blessed idiots have a way of using big words like “venerate,” and otherwise complicating something that is not that complicated: Mary is one heck of a role model and someone I like having on my team.

Ok, so on to the story.

A few years ago, two friends introduced Kim and I to a book called “33 Days to Morning Glory.” The subtitle is “A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Marian Consecration.” At first I was skeptical. Marian Consecration?! Will this involve altars and the bloodshed of young goats?

Unfortunately, it did not. It is, however, an invitation to to basically declare, “Ok Mary. I officially want you to be on my team. I want you to help me be more like Jesus. Let’s do something awesome together.”

Something like that.

So Kim and I went through the book with our friends. And on my 37th birthday, I consecrated myself to Mary. Again, there were no swords, giant stone altars, or goblets filled with blood. Sadly.

Then interesting things started to happen. Exactly two months later, we discovered Kim was pregnant with our third child. Although it was unplanned and unexpected, it was NOT an immaculate conception. I’m pretty sure I was there for the magical moment, but I may have blacked out for part of it.

In May, a book agent came out of nowhere and asked (it sounds weird to say begged, but Michelle would probably use that word) if she could represent me. After meeting with her and discovering what a good chemistry we had, I said yes. And thus began the journey to signing our first book deal with a major New York publisher. A year later, also in May, was when we officially secured a deal with St. Martin’s Press to bring Penguins Can’t Fly to the world.

Now in the Catholic Church, May is considered the official month of Mary. You know, like how States have official State birds and flowers and stuff? So Mary has her own month. And just like the wood violet is the official state flower of Wisconsin, the rose is the official flower of Mary.

So get this: We finalized the book deal in May, after connecting with the book agent the previous May. And the editor at St. Martin’s who I’d be working with was named…Rose.

Meanwhile, our daughter was born a few days before Christmas in 2013, and we named her Virginia Rose, the first names of our paternal grandmothers, and two names with links to the virgin Mary.

Shortly after we signed the book deal, Kim and I decided we officially wanted to shoot for the New York Times Bestseller list. (Although no one knows exactly HOW books are selected for The List, as they are not based solely on actual sales numbers, there are a lot of different strategies you need to employ to give yourself a shot, all of which usually mean you will make less money that you would otherwise.) We were driving home to see our dads for Father’s Day, and we made the deciscion. We both knew there was no way we could do it on our own, so we turned to someone we thought could help. I decided to dedicate the book to Mary (if you have it, you now know which Mary I was referring to on the dedication page). Starting on Father’s Day in 2014, we have each said a Rosary every single day, asking Mary to help us in this quest.

For those of you unaware, the Rosary is a series of prayers said by old ladies.

I kid, I kid.

But seriously, I had previously not been a big fan of saying the Rosary, mostly because it is so rote and rigid. After all, I’m an artist, man; I like things that are new and fresh and different. Routine can be so…boring. But it was a perfect way to show I was serious about this, because it was a sacrifice. There were many days when I put it off and put it off, and at the end of the night, something that would normally take less than 15 minutes took about an hour because I kept drifting off to sleep mid-Hail Mary.

Brutal. Over the year, however, I began to appreciate its meditative qualities, and look forward to those quiet times apart from the crazy busyness of daily life. And along the way, there were lots of signs — many being very personal — that seemed to indicate that Mary and her son were indeed at work.

I made connections with people who endorsed and helped promote the book that I never would have had contact with otherwise. Pre-orders were so good that St. Martin’s Press had to order a second print run of the book BEFORE it even launched. Barnes & Noble currently has orders in for book that they can’t get fulfilled. We just got word that the confirmed sell-through rate of the initial print run is 75%. (Sell-through is the number of books printed that are actually sold.) My editor told us that the average sell-through rate for most books — for their entire lifetime on shelves — is 60%. The remaining 40% is typically returned and destroyed. There usually is no second print run.

Now when it comes to bestseller lists, all of the weeks or months of pre-orders count for the first week. We knew all along, that this would be our best shot. Leading up to launch week, things were going so well, we had a good chance. Plus, we had Mary on our side.

Make no mistake, we didn’t sit around waiting for miracles to happen. We followed the advice of St. Ignatius, who said, “Work as if everything depended on you; pray is if everything depended on God.” We hustled our butts off and we prayed like cloistered nuns.

Last night, we learned that we didn’t make it.

It would appear that this is where the story ends. We failed. Mary let us down. Our faith is a sham.

I’m guessing you’ve had at least one experience in your life where you prayed and prayed for something. Maybe you were even confident your prayer would be answered. But in the end, the thing you hoped would come to pass doesn’t. It just…doesn’t.

The question is, what do you do then? Do you turn angry and bitter, shaking your fists at God? That’s a common response, and certainly understandable. Make no mistake: I am sad and disappointed. But I also believe that real faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

There have already been numerous accounts of people whom, upon receiving the book, immediately turn around and order multiple copies to give to others. We have always pegged this book as one you recommend to people, and although we narrowly missed the big lists in our launch week, there are indicators that this book has the makings of a perennial bestseller.

And so, call me delusional, but I don’t see this as an end. I see it as a “to be continued.”

If you don’t have a few “to be continued” moments in your story, where the outcome is uncertain, you are not stretching yourself enough and your dreams are too small.

A story where Frodo gets a ring, lollygags through fields of daisies and tulips, and saves the world by easily destroying said ring in the fires from whence it was forged, would be a very boring story. Completely lacking in sequel potential, to be sure.

Kim and I, we’ve been at this too long, and have too many UNanswered prayers for which we are already immensely grateful, to not believe that God doesn’t have something even greater planned. We believe Mary is still working on our behalf, even though we can’t always see the evidence with our own eyes. Because that’s what Faith is all about, Charlie Brown.

Faith is Indiana Jones, stepping out into nothingness, onto an invisible bridge that doesn’t appear to exist.

No, this isn’t the end. The momentum for this book is only beginning to build.

I don’t know what’s next. But I know it’s just about to get good.

P.S. Of course, there are a TON of people to thank for the early success of this book. If you have purchased a book, or many copies of the book, or have done anything to spread the word about it with your friends, families, and sworn enemies, THANK YOU. Thank you for being a part of this story.

Well, today is the day! My book, Penguins Can’t Fly, officially launches into the world!

Perhaps you’re wondering, “What does an author do on launch day?”

More on that in a sec, but first, a little housekeeping. Thank you for putting up with all the onslaught about this book. Many people have praised us for our effort, but I am sure there are others who have been driven away. So…if you’re still here, I am grateful! Sometimes, when you really believe in something, it’s worth putting everything you have into it. I’d rather have a few unsubscribes than a sackful of regret that I didn’t do enough.

So, if you have not already bought the book, today is the BEST day to do it. Get it here. Or here. Or here.

It’s also a great day to tell the world about it on your favorite social media platform. Or, you know, in real life. Amazon reviews matter, so I appreciate if you could share a few honest thoughts about the book here.

So…what DOES an author do on launch day?

It’s a good question, and one I don’t know the answer to. I’ve never had a real launch day before. I suspect that many authors sit by their computer, frantically checking Amazon numbers, reading reviews, or sending out emails in a last-ditch attempt to get the word out.

Not me.

I am passionate about this book, but I am sick of asking people to buy it. (At least for a while.) And as an artist, it kind of terrifies me to read what people think of it. I hope they love it, of course, but one negative review from some nincompoop tends to offset a hundred good ones. Someday I will grow thicker skin. It probably won’t be today. As far as the numbers? They will be what they will be. I’ve done my best to make a really great book. It is now out in the world and hopefully people will buy it and like it enough to share it with others.

And so here is what I am planning on doing today.

I am going to spend time in prayer, giving the book back to God. I will tell Him what He already knows, which is that He can do with it whatever he wants. Then I am going to an art museum to see beautiful things and seek inspiration for making beautiful things. After that, I am going to spend time in my studio, making new art, which is something I’ve done too little of in the last few months. Then I am going to dress up in a suit and take my wife out for a nice dinner to celebrate. I will order steak. And finally, Kim and I will host a live party on Facebook, where we will answer questions, give things away, and hang out with some of my favorite people on the face of the Earth. (I hope you will join us!)

Then I will fall asleep, knowing that whatever happens, I will have done my best.

Of course, I will keep you up to date with how the book is doing, and I’m looking forward to sharing more adventures from the #Notarule Tour, but I will be going on an “asking sabbatical” after today.

Next week, we’ll resume our normal schedule, with posts that are less about me and more about you.

Thanks for reading. And thanks for cheering us on.

The picture above is from 2002, eight months after 9/11. I was focused on my comic strip back then and was three years away from the start of my speaking career. We were in New York City for the first time to walk the National Stationery Show. While there, we met a licensing agent who agreed to represent my Kim & Jason artwork. It was so exciting, and it felt like such a big break. It amounted to a handful of small deals, mostly overseas (I think they made some sort of photo album in Japan), but it didn’t really make the dent we’d hoped for.

That was thirteen years ago.

Since then, there have been many little breaks that felt like they might have been bigger. For several years, we flirted with bankruptcy as we scraped and clawed our way to a business model that could sustain itself. There were many tear-filled nights when we wondered if we were crazy. And there was that two-day craft show in which we sold a grand total of four greeting cards for a whopping sum of $7.92 (after which we drained our profit and drowned our sorrows with a $35 meal at Outback.)

Time and time again, we’ve encountered numerous opportunities that seemed like the “big break” we were waiting for. Some crashed and burned into a heap of soldering failure. Many, although falling fall short of our vivid imaginations, blossomed into a sturdy enough bridge that kept us moving forward.

Through it all, Kim and I developed some tough skin. Some might say jaded. But you can only have your high hopes dashed so many times before you start protecting yourself by downgrading your dreams.

And this is why, before this moment, we haven’t told many people about our dream of this book — the one coming out a week from Tuesday — becoming a New York Times bestseller. Because we’ve been down this road before. It’s embarrassing to put your dream out there and have it not come true with everyone watching. It’s easier to not get your hopes up.

But my friend, who experienced years of frustration and heartache before finally adopting her two kids, recently told Kim, “It hurts the same whether you get your hopes up or not.”

So yes, I do want this book to become a bestseller.

Not so I can be rich and famous, but so that this message — the message we’ve risked everything for — can finally reach the audience it deserves. We don’t have the money for a fancy publicist, we aren’t connected to A-list bloggers, and our tribe is relatively small.

But it IS a tribe that cares. The heartfelt emails, encouraging comments, and warm hugs have sustained us over the years, giving us the confidence that were were on the right track.

Truly, we wouldn’t be here without you.

If there is any chance of making “The List” it will require no small amount of help from you. Without getting into specifics and making this long post even longer, the formula for getting on it is a lot like voodoo. It doesn’t actually measure the true number of books sold, and some argue it is crooked and unfair. A lot depends on who else releases a book the same time, but we were told that selling 5,000 copies in one week gives us a reasonable shot of making it. The good news is that although all numbers reset back to zero each week, pre-orders for a book all count toward the first week’s sales.

Right now, we are at about 3,000. Honestly, that seems as tantalizingly close as it does to a million miles away. Especially since even getting to 5,000 doesn’t bring any guarantees.

But I know I would regret not sharing this dream and these numbers with you. We have to try, even if it is scary going public like this.

If you’ve read this far, you may be wondering how you can help. Here are a few:

1) Obviously, buying the book is a big one, and the more the better. You may have already done this, but if not, now is the time. For a few more days, we still have our packages online for 5, 10, 25, and 100 books. Lots of people are buying multiple copies to use as gifts for friends, clients, customers, or employees.

2) Support our Thunderclap campaign by saying “yes” to posting a one-time message about the book on Facebook or Twitter. It’s free and easy, but will create a powerful wave of attention on launch day. Here’s the link: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/27704-help-marty-fly

3) Please leave an honest review on Amazon.com or Goodreads when you you finally get the book in your hands. It is HUGE for social proof.

4) Finally, just share this book and the message with people you think need to hear about it, whether it’s your boss, the president of an association you belong to, or the neighbor down the street. Blog posts, newsletters, Facebook updates and tweets are all appreciated. Here’s a link to some handy tools and graphics to help you out.

In closing, I just want to thank you for the support. I feel like all I am doing is asking all the time, and I can’t wait for the dust to settle down so I can just go back to giving.

Seriously, thank you.

I made the comment about not wanting to be “rich and famous” earlier. The truth is, I already feel like the richest guy in the world and I know that I am loved, which is better than fame any day.

Thanks for fueling me and Kim with your words and deeds.

Now let’s go give Adultitis everything we’ve got.

Writing, designing, and illustrating Penguins Can’t Fly was easy and fun, at least compared to the marketing, promoting, and selling part of the process. Since the beginning, I knew that the bulk of the latter was on us, not the publisher. This is something that few authors grasp.

You see, with all the books that they publish, there are only so many resources a publisher can put behind a first-time author. (Technically, I am not a first-time author, with four books and several thousands of copies sold, but I AM a rookie when it comes to the traditional publishing game.) St. Martin’s has invested a considerable amount of money in making this a full-color, hardcover book, and for that, I’m super grateful.

Since the day we signed the contract, Kim and I have known that creativity is our number one asset when it comes to promoting this book. Especially since we don’t have a ton of A-List blogger friends or a boatload of money to invest in marketing.

A few months ago, one of the women on our marketing team sent us a list of potential bookstores where she could arrange book signings. Although you might consider book signings to be exciting and glamourous, I can assure you that unless you are already famous or have a relatively large online following, they look something like this: you are sitting at a table with a stack of your books. What seems like a thousand people walk by without even a glance. One person stops, picks up your book, puts it down, and walks away, without a single word. Another person stops to ask you where the bathroom is. Finally, another person stops and buys a book. This person is either a) your mom or b) your dad.

So yeah, sign me up for a few weeks of that. Not.

In any case, when you write a book about breaking rules that don’t exist, you kind of put a bit of pressure on yourself to not do things the way they are always done.

And so it was with great excitement when Kim and I came up with an idea that we thought was really novel. Since the book is titled “Penguins Can’t Fly,” what if we did our book signings at zoos? And what if instead of making the event about us, we made it into a fun event that focused on the guests, and featured a bunch of immersive Activity Stations that were inspired by rules from the book?

We envision things like:

• Thou Shalt Act Thine Age: We’ll have a photo booth area with a big picture frame, silly props, and (hopefully) a Marty the Penguin mascot with a red balloon to pose for photos.
• Thy Christmas Cookies Shalt Look Like Christmas Cookies: a supply of penguin-shaped sugar cookies, frosting, and other accouterments will be on hand and guests will be encouraged to decorate their own cookies as ugly as possible.
• Thou Shalt Not Draw on Thy Children: Parents will be given permission to draw on their children with washable markers.
• Thou Shalt Only Wear Thy Wedding Dress on Thy Wedding Day: Anyone who comes to the zoo in their wedding dress will get a signed print and be entered to win a really cool grand prize.

It’s a perfect way to connect with the target market of the book. Each zoo could run sales through their own book store, so they would receive all proceeds from the event, in addition to having something that would enhance the experience of their guests. We, in turn, would have something unique to pitch to the media, and our family would get to spend our summer visiting a bunch of great zoos (which is a favorite pastime of ours).

I know I am biased, but it seems like a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

I am happy to say that there are a handful of zoos that quickly saw the vision and immediately jumped on board. So the Escape Adulthood Zoo Tour is happening. The only question (besides how we will pay for it) is how extensive it will be.

You guys, Kim and I had no idea how hard of a sell this would be.

Although it’s common knowledge that all the animals at zoos are in enclosures, I am saddened to say that many of the humans running them are in cages, imprisoned by Adultitis.

You would not believe some of the responses we’ve gotten back. Our hometown zoo wanted to charge us $1,000 for the use of two folding tables. One guy turned us down, saying, “We don’t really do this sort of thing.” (Really? You don’t say. That’s kind of the whole point…) Another woman literally said, “As a rule, we don’t host events with outsiders.” (Ha! “As a RULE!” And she said this without the least bit of irony.)

Kim and I keep telling ourselves that all this rejection will make for a better story later, but right now, I can’t lie. It’s really hard. Every no is like a punch in the gut, an invitation to wonder if we really are just delusional.

Frankly, this is a feeling you’d think we’d have gotten used to, fifteen years into this journey.

Nope. It’s still hard. In some ways, this seems harder. Maybe it’s because there’s so much at stake, maybe it’s because we see the vision so clearly that it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could not be excited by it.

Perhaps we are just not selling it right (we keep tweaking our pitch based on the feedback we’ve been getting). Perhaps it is just not as terrific an idea as we think. Or perhaps this is just another painful example of just how prevalent Adultitis is in our society.

There are countless people who are too conditioned to play by the rules, too used to doing what they’re told, and too afraid to take a chance on something new and different.

We are heartened by the brave zoos who have already signed on to partner with us, eager to create something special for their guests. It is our goal to make sure their communities know how lucky they are to have these forward-thinking, Adultitis-fighting advocates in their midst. We hope that we will be able to visit a zoo near you. We’ll keep you posted.

I just wanted to share this to give you an inside look at what’s going on behind the scenes of the marketing of this book. But I also hope it’s a good reminder to you that changing the world, no matter how small a corner of it, is never easy.

All you can do is have faith, keep tinkering, and refuse to give up.

Many folks have asked me how I got my book deal. Basically, a literary agent came out of nowhere after seeing my art on Facebook, asked if she could represent me, pretty much wrote the proposal, and pitched it to a bunch of big New York publishers in person.

I know. If ever there was a “must be nice,” this is it. And it’s completely unhelpful for anyone looking to land a book deal of their own.

But that’s not really the full story. The real story is a bit longer and a lot more useful.

It starts about ten years ago during Kim’s lunch break when she was still teaching kindergarten. She would use these off hours to make sales calls for our young business. One day, she connected with a religious education director named Mary Jo, who took a shine to us and hired me to speak at her church. She insisted that there was a market waiting for us if we created a faith-based program that could hold the attention of both kids and adults. She was right. Her insight was what helped launch my speaking career and led to Kim’s retirement from teaching.

A few years later, we moved into an office space and held some cartooning workshops. We promoted it to our newsletter subscribers, and the mother of one of the girls who attended had been in the audience of that early program at Mary Jo’s church.

Fast forward about four more years, and we landed an awesome gig for a well-known technology company in Madison. The executive who helped approve the contract was Kristin, the very same woman who’d heard me years earlier, and whose daughter had attended the cartooning workshop.

Then, one of the employees of the tech company that hired us shared some of my art on Facebook to help promote the conference. And that person had a tenuous connection with Michelle, who saw the art and eventually became my agent.

It’s not a stretch to say that the book deal we got can be traced back to a cold call to a church about a potential speaking opportunity over ten years ago.

After really mulling over how things transpired, I’ve been able to uncover a few lessons that anyone can apply, whether you’re trying land a book deal or not.

Your Failures Aren’t Always Failures.
We’ve tried a lot of things over the years, and most of them haven’t worked. (Did you know that we used to have a fundraising program where schools could sell our greeting cards for profit?) Too often, I let those disappointments discourage me. But for every thing that didn’t turn out as we’d hoped, something came out of each one that helped contribute to a success somewhere else. We don’t do cartooning workshops anymore, but I never could have predicted the role they’d play in getting us to where we are now.

Show Your Work.
The primary reason my art was on Facebook for my agent to discover through a friend of a friend was because I read Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. In the book, he suggests that the best non-slimy way to promote yourself is by simply spending a little time every day sharing what you’ve done.

Serendipitous things happen all the time, but only to those who put themselves out there. As an artist, I can attest that it can be scary to put your art into the world for public consumption. What if people hate it? Or worse, what if people don’t care? Sometimes it’s more appealing to live in the fantasy that your art is great and amazing than risk encountering the reality that it most certainly is not.

One beautiful thing about the internet is the opportunity it gives us to scatter a breadcrumb trail of work that people of influence can stumble upon. And scatter you must, for you never know who might find their way to your front door.

Live In Your Core.
We are all great at a few things. Even more than being a speaker or a writer or an entrepreneur, I am an artist. Always have been. It’s probably the thing I do best and enjoy the most. But there was a stretch there where I wasn’t making any art at all. After I retired my daily comic strip, I was burned out, tired, and disappointed that my efforts had not delivered better results. I entered into a fallow period.

Eventually, the call to create started to bubble up again. I resisted for a while because I couldn’t rationalize how it would help our business. I was inspired by people like Marc Johns and Scott C. and began sketching and experimenting. There was no motivation to create something that would sell, I just allowed myself to play. Eventually, a new style began to emerge as the fire returned. A big part of me that had been dormant for so long was suddenly awake. It resulted in the creation of art that became the cornerstone of the book proposal that convinced the publisher to go all out in full color.

Great things happen when you obey the promptings of your soul and spend as much time as possible on the things that make it sing.

Do The Work.
Everyone is looking for shortcuts, but there is no substitute to sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work. You need hours set aside to make progress on the stuff that matters, not the busywork that only feels productive. If you’re an artist, you have to make art. If you’re a writer, you need to actually write. If you want to run a marathon, you need to spend time running. My friend Chris says, “Thinking about writing is not writing. Only writing is writing.” Seems obvious, but it’s amazing how easily this little fact is ignored.

At the time I made the commitment to refocus my attention on making more art, there was no immediate financial payoff involved. Spending time bringing sketchbook doodles to life was not putting money in my pocket. There were many other things that would have provided a more tangible return on investment. And as much as I enjoyed making the art, there were many nights when dragging my butt into my studio was not nearly as attractive as watching another TV show with Kim, or just going to sleep.

I made a commitment to just make art and not worry about where it would lead. And the best stuff — including the art that would eventually become the cover — came not from some late-night lightning bolt of inspiration, but from the hard slog of sketching and painting, even when I didn’t feel like it.

Never Ever Ever Ever Give Up.
Winston Churchill had it right. I dare say that persistence is the biggest key to any success I’ve had. Don’t keep doing the same thing over and over, but don’t stop trying, either. If something doesn’t work, try something different. Hang in there. Tinker. All of the so-called overnight successes I’ve ever encountered have an unheralded backstory filled with persistence and a lot of hard work and failure that most people never see.

We’ve been on this journey for fourteen years. I’ve made a lot of art in that time. I’ve given a lot of speeches. And I’ve done a ton of writing (2,000 comic strips and almost 3,000 blog posts and counting.) Over that time, we’ve never had what would be considered a big break, but we have slowly built a solid platform, and that platform was one of the things that impressed the publisher and led to us getting a deal. And this book was relatively easy to write because it’s basically a greatest hits of more than a decade’s worth of work.

In closing, what I just laid out for you is not a step-by-step, color-by-number strategy for securing a book deal with a major New York publisher. Those don’t actually work all that well anyway.

But it is a pretty foolproof blueprint to follow if you want to make good things happen and create your very own “must be nice.”

The first Escape Lab is almost halfway done, and I am blown away by the response so far. When Kim and I brainstormed this late last year, we thought we might be on to something special, but you just never know. Well, this has exceeded all expectations!

Last night we took a first step at Escape Lab LIVE, which is basically a party on Facebook in real time. Through our special members-only group, we took questions, posted some of our own, and gave out door prizes. The discussion was fast and lively, with topics ranging from figuring out our superhero names and sharing our favorite black & white TV shows, to deeper fare like how to take the Adultitis out of homework time with kids and tips for finding more “me” time. The hour went by in a flash, and we can’t wait for the next one!

Here are a few more highlights thus far…

1) The Treasure Box, for sure. People have reported that they’re STILL finding things they didn’t realize were in there. (Here’s a behind scenes look, in case you missed it.)

2) Opening the first secret envelope, which included special plastic for making Shrinky Dinks!

3) A super fun interview with Kyle Scheele, the mastermind behind some of our favorite Kickstarter projects.

4) A challenge to step out of our culinary comfort zones by trying something new. Foods that have been sampled for the first time so far include: honey, Bean Boozled jelly beans, brussels sprouts, tangelos, calamari, pork tacos, sushi, and even dog biscuits!

5) Seeing people share some honest stuff on some really challenging life balance topics, and then having fellow Escape Artists respond with heartfelt support and encouragement. So great!

6) Another interview with the brilliant Neen James that yielded some crazy useful productivity tips to start the new year.

7) The neat things people are doing with a single packet of Kool-Aid, which was in the second secret envelope, including this amazing little stop-motion video that was created by Jason Love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHidf7Toawc

Obviously, we’re having a blast with Escape Lab. More importantly, people are making some big changes for the better and having fun in the process. I’m not sure when the next one will be, but if you want to the first to hear about it, make sure you’re an Escape Adulthood Insider!

There’s some big news to report on the book front.

I have learned that Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist will officially be published on June 23, 2015. (That’s the cover right there!) It will be published as paper-over-board, which is basically a hardcover book without the dust jacket. And it will cost $16.99. It was originally going to be $14.99, but after doing a more thorough cost estimate, St. Martin’s Press decided to raise the price rather than cut corners on quality. They are really committed to making a beautiful book, which I couldn’t be happier about.

The manuscript is complete, surviving several rounds of edits and proofreading. I have been busy finishing up the art and layout of the book. In the world of traditional publishing, it’s incredibly rare for a single person to be responsible for the writing, the illustration, AND the layout of the entire book. It is a privilege I am incredibly grateful for.

As I’ve been building the book in Adobe InDesign, it’s become clear that in many ways, this book is my magnum opus. Especially at this point of my my career. When the book is officially realized, Kim and I will have been at this for exactly fifteen years, one month, and three days. It’s been a long road. This book has artwork that’s literally fifteen years old (I did that painting of Super J up there in 2000) as well as some that’s about fifteen minutes old. It’s the culmination of fifteen years of excruciating lows, amazing epiphanies, best practices, stories collected, jokes refined, and profound lessons learned, packaged in all its full-color glory.

It’s got humor and insight and hope. Quite simply, it’s my heart and soul on display.

And it feels like the final exam of a class that was thirty semesters long.

It also feels like it’s the end of a long beginning and a beginning of something even better.

I can’t wait to share it with you.

You guys! I am thrilled to report that today I completed drafts for all 40 rules that will be in the book! I ended up including 6 of the top 7 rules voted on by you, so thank you to all who voted! (I decided the rule “Thou shalt take yourself seriously” was a theme that ran throughout many of the ones I already had, so that didn’t make it.) Almost all of my writing took place outside near Lake Michigan today, as it was finally sunny and beautiful :)

Tomorrow I will be hitting the sketchbook hard. I have plans to use much of my existing art in the final book, but I need to create a lot more to round things out. I’m looking forward to that!

I will let the stuff I wrote these past few days simmer on the back burner for a week or two before returning to them with fresh eyes. I think I’ve got a good start, but there’s a lot of room for refinement. That being said, here are 10 more nuggets that came out of todays session:

* * * * *

“It’s an incontrovertible fact: it is impossible to hear Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” while driving and not transform into a head-banging, lyric-belting, steering wheel-pounding god or goddess of rock & roll.”

“I bought a cinnamon roll that was about as big as my head. Now, I didn’t need a cinnamon roll as big as my head, but that’s all they had. I felt full long before the cinnamon roll was finished but it killed me to throw the last of it away. It seemed like the equivalent of burning my wallet. But what’s the alternative? I doubt the barista would oblige a request to pay half for a cinnamon roll as big as a baby’s fist.”

“Maybe we should give our kids the gift of doing less. Maybe we should bless them with boredom. If that doesn’t help matters, I’m sure my mom could find something for them to do.”

“When it comes to dishing out guilt and defending the rules that don’t exist, Adultitis doesn’t deal in logic.”

“Play is the miracle drug we’ve been looking for!”

“When we die, will we be judged poorly because we didn’t reply to every email?”

“Give your waistline a gift and throw your guilt down the garbage disposal. You really don’t have to clean thy plate.”

“Taking the time to do nothing once in a while – especially with the people we love – is often the single most important thing we can do in an entire day. In fact, I strongly suspect that at the end of our lives, all of us will wish we would have spent a little bit more time doing nothing.”

“Now all of a sudden you’re an agent of social change at the wheel. You’re Bono in a blue minivan.”

“Warning: if you measure your level of importance and value by how busy you are, there’s a pretty good chance the story you’re living sucks.”

Pretty productive writing day yesterday! I have drafts of 28 of the 40 chapters for the book done, a feat I attribute 50% to focus & freedom from distraction and 50% to me drinking coffee for the first time :) Here are 10 things I wrote that I’m pretty proud of…

“No one ever died at the age of 100 looking like a 19-year-old.”

“And if you don’t want to make the bed, no evil will befall you. Sure, the ghost of your mother may haunt you, but it’s not like she wouldn’t have anything else to hound you about, right?”

“The tuxedo I wore was a rental, but if it were still in my possession I’d need a giant shoehorn to put it on and the Jaws of Life to take it off.”

“Our world is aching for silliness. Not just in the backyard, but in the boardroom as well.”

“Let’s face it: the sixty-year-old ladies trying to look thirty, don’t. They look creepy. They make the clown from the Stephen King classic “It” afraid of clowns.”

“Isn’t it weird how someone can wear the equivalent of skimpy underwear at the beach without a second thought but a dude wearing flannel pajamas to Panera Bread is frowned upon?”

“Decorating the office, empowering your receptionist to be more childlike, and adding a little whimsy to your products or packaging may be simple, but they actually do something quite important. They have the power to uplift the human spirit.”

“Confidence is sexier than any cream. Confidence comes from within, not from a container.”

“Instead of jamming as much activity into our leisure time as possible, let’s give ourselves the gift of breathing room. Instead of spending our time watching the penguins at the zoo thinking about what four exhibits we should go see next, maybe we should just spend time, you know, actually watching the penguins.”

“Once upon a time there was a girl who was raised by her grandmother in a magical forest. The old woman was always telling her to be careful, so she was. And nothing awesome ever happened to her. The end.”

P.S. I’ll be posting more updates on our Facebook page, so make sure you’ve liked it to get the freshest news!

When Kim was little and in Catholic school, she was one of two children who were selected to answer a question from a priest during an all-school mass. The answer would be recorded for posterity in the city newspaper. The priest asked them, “If you could change anything in the world, what would it be?”

In front of hundreds of students and parents, including her own, Kim confidently declared that she would change her room around.

She was quickly upstaged by the jerky classmate who wished that no one in the world would be sick anymore.

Kim immediately regretted her answer. But it was honest one, for changing her room around was one of her favorite pasttimes. After being married for almost 14 years, I think she may be rubbing off on me.

I have changed the color of my studio four times now since we moved in four years ago. It was originally white. I decided I wanted to go bold, so I went with one of my favorite colors: royal blue. The first shade I tried was too green, and it was a hideous nightmare. Before the paint was dry, I was on my way to the hardware store for a more suitable hue. It was better, but not by much. After a few weeks living in this blue period, I confirmed that although a lovely color, I didn’t want to be enveloped in it.

As embarrassing as it was, I had to change it again.

After a lot of thinking, I hypothesized that I wanted to create a cozy cocoon. I turned to Barnes & Noble as inspiration, because I always feel cozy there. It’s where I’d do some of my best thinking. So I painted my studio a dark, grayish green.

Much better.

Until a few weeks ago.

A few things converged. First, I was starting to feel overwhelmed and suffocated by my space. (Here is a panoramic shot of the studio before.)

Secondly, I began dreaming about my ULTIMATE office. Lots of windows! Natural light! Hardwood floors! High ceilings! Lots of square footage! No clutter! A lake view!

Now, many of these pipe dreams are still in the pipe. But after a bit of sulking, I decided to change the things I could. I spent several days de-cluttering. I opened the window shades all the way to allow in as much natural light as possible. And I painted the walls yet again, this time with a very light warm grey.

Here is the final result:

I love it. The uncluttering has given me room to breathe. And the new color increases the overall brightness, makes the room seem bigger, and makes my toys and artwork pop even more.

So far I am in love.

Perhaps I’ve finally settled on something that will suit me just fine until the dream studio becomes a reality.

Perhaps. ;)

A few of my favorite things.

I am such a sucker for art supplies arranged by color.

An AT-AT stalks my art table. Any suspicions that I am a complete nerd should be confirmed by now.

Some people think it’s fun to examine other people’s bookshelves. If that floats your boat, have at it.

Some out-of-print classics.

A small collection of license plates above my window. A fan sent me the New Hampshire one a few years back. She was a Kim and had just broken up with her Jason. I love New Hamphire’s state motto. The others are from when we lived in Illinois.

My Mom is a big fan of Precious Moments. These two are mine, and they hold special meaning for me. The one on the left is titled, “Onward Christian Soldier,” and the other one is “Wait Patiently on the Lord.” They provided lots of encouragement over the years, especially during the lean times.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…

I have a whole shelf devoted to Seth Godin. Because he’s awesome, that’s why.

This is my shelf of evil. Got that authentic alligator head on my honeymoon.

Spidey watches over my drafting table.

I do have a lot of toys. I affectionately refer to them as my board of directors.

I call that Star Wars dude to Hulk’s right “The General.” I buried the original in the backyard when I was a kid and never was able to find him again. I discovered and purchased this replacement a few years ago on a “Man Shopping Trip” with my dad and brothers.

My Dad made this wooden train for me when I was little. Isn’t it the coolest?

It had been on my list for an agonizingly long time: Create a new speaking video.

The old one served us well, but was getting long in the tooth. (Most of the footage was from over five years ago.) It was a task I dreaded.

I knew what I didn’t want: A demo reel with cheesy spinning graphics and an announcer extolling the virtues of a speaker who sounds like he got lost in 1990. We have enough cheese here in Wisconsin, thank you very much.

What did I want? Something fresh, fun, and simple. Something that looked professional but had the charm of something homemade, like the best kinds of pie.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the video is done. It turned out to be eight minutes long. It’s amazing how much time and effort it takes to make something so short in length! There are many things to consider. I had to find the right music, something original and cheery and upbeat, but not too juvenile, and not too much like a bad local TV commercial. I’d need to sit through hours of speaking footage, cherry picking stuff that expressed a decent thought in a short amount of time. The hardest part was deciding on a narrative, the skeleton that would hold everything together in a way that made sense.

Like I said, it was job I did not look forward to. And considering the fact that speaking is the bulk of our livelihood, there was a certain amount of pressure to make sure it turned out well.

I specifically avoided watching other speakers’ videos because I didn’t want to be influenced. I wanted to come up with something original. I was also afraid I’d see something that was so good I’d immediately spin into a shame spiral knowing I’d never be able to produce anything remotely close. I cannot tell you if my aim to create something truly original was accomplished, because alas, I never did watch any other demo videos.

The biggest hurdle was the narrative. What was the structure? What road would it lead the viewer?

I spent way too much time thinking of this, to no avail. Eventually, I had the novel idea of actually reading the sales copy on our site. After joyfully discovering that it actually sounded quite good and did the job of describing what makes me unique reasonably well, I decided it might be smart to avoid reinventing the wheel. So I pulled the best bits of copy into a script that would serve as the narration of the video.

Then I set up my video camera on a tripod in my studio, next to the window to provide natural light, and spent a few hours talking to it. I rotated the view screen so I could see how the shot would look, but had to keep reminding myself to look at the camera instead of the screen. I ultimately taped a small figurine of Boo from Monsters, Inc. to serve as my audience of one.

I quickly discovered that speaking for video is very similar to speaking to a large audience. If you speak how you normally speak, you end up looking like a barely animated cadaver who was just resurrected to give a boring speech. If, however, you make an effort to be a little bit bigger than normal — almost on the edge of ridiculously unnatural — it comes across just right to the audience. I do not know why this is, it just is.

So I shot lots of takes of me saying lines over and over, hoping that just one would be useful in the end. I’m not sure how it’s possible to feel self-conscious about what you’re doing when there is no one around to hear or see you, but I did. I guess Boo is an intimidating audience.

I had to try importing the footage into iMovie three times because some of the clips ended up with the sound and image not synchronizing. (Not sure if it was the video camera or the computer who was being the jerk; perhaps they were both in cahoots?) Once I picked the best lines and placed them into the timeline, the live speaking footage and testimonial clips just fell into place. My intuition kicked into high gear, and it felt like I was just putting them where they told me they should go.

My final and favorite step was adding in the music. It has a way of tying everything together and taking things to a new level. Other than the ominous track I used for the bit about Adultitis, I used three different songs, each with similar instruments and tempo. This helped give a feeling of cohesiveness while preventing the whole thing from sounding too monotonous.

Here’s how it turned out:

In the end, I’m really happy with the result. I kind of wish I had a hi-def camera for the narration parts, but since the video will be mostly seen on computer monitors in a browser, it’s not the worst thing in the world.

Hopefully, it will serve us well for another half decade…

What do you think? What’s your favorite part? Any questions about something I didn’t cover? Fire away in the comments!