I mean, it sounds like a routine is very important to your process, though.

Yeah.

And what's funny is that my routine is something I'm 55 now.

I think I have to ask my wife.

But I think I'm 55 and I've only started to develop a routine only just now in my life.

My father growing up, he had gone, he had been in the military and everything was routine for him.

Like his watch, like he would wake me up at the same exact minute every single day.

How do you decide or is it you? I don't know what you're going to put on the cover, how you're going to draw people into a story.

So talk to me about why you decided to build a bookstore.

There used to be a building in the center of the town right on this spot where we are.

It was called Falk's Market, and it was an old general store.

And when we moved here, it had been abandoned for about 17 years.

When we got our first royalty check for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, we spent it on buying the building, and we thought, "Well, what could serve everyone from ages two to, like, 98?"

[laughs]

But it's about three or four acres here, and we just wanted to create these spaces where people could gather, where we could get to know our neighbors.

We're in the Guild Garden, which will open soon.

Like, what were the early reactions you got to the stuff you were handing in?

Yeah.

Well, what I really wanted to do was to become a newspaper cartoonist.

I saw where I wanted to be, uh, physically on the comics page.

I thought I was a pretty good joke writer.

I had success in college with my cartoon strip.

So I thought that I had a pretty clear pathway to the comics page.

"How do I get there?"

He wanted to show his renovation plan to the community.

Hello, everyone.

Thank you so much for coming today.

It's

Do you see any connection between yourself and someone like them, some big corporate entity that's trying to reinvent their future?

One of the things that's been really surprising to me is that a major beer operator, and I can't name names right now because we haven't signed papers, but they're interested in being in downtown Plainville.

And I said, "Why are you interested in being here?" And they said, "Because if you're here, you're the thing that people do." If we go into Boston or a big town like that, you're competing with 30 or 40 other restaurants.

But in a place like this, you know, you've got a shot at becoming the show.

So you wind up publishing with Harry N. Abrams, correct?

Yes.

At the time, Harry N. Abrams would be known as an art book publisher, so those gorgeous picture books that you have on your coffee table primarily.

They weren't doing a lot of this kind of thing.

What I really liked was that they treated books as an object to be valued.

They put a lot of craftsmanship into their publishing, and I thought, "If I sign with Harry N. Abrams, that might elevate the work itself," and that's the way it's been with Wimpy Kid.

About two weeks after the book was published, it got on the New York Times bestseller list, which was just an absolute shock.

And let's now talk about how you came to intersect with the Macy's parade.