Growing up in rural Ohio, I knew my way around a double-wide pretty well.

I feel like I was hit by all of geek culture at once while I was growing up in the '70s and '80s. Saturday morning cartoons like 'Star Blazers' and 'Robotech.' Live action Japanese shows like 'Ultraman' and 'The Space Giants.'

Star Wars' was the mythology of my youth. I longed for adventure.

I was always obsessed with the 'Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai,' this weird little cult movie. There was this promised sequel before the end credits - 'Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League' - and I knew instinctively they were never going to make that movie, because the first one had made, like, $8 at the box office.

Lockup,' inside America's supersize prisons on MSNBC, is one of my favorite shows. I get a lot of my inspiration for Blair Waldorf from that show.

While I have always thought that the motivation for looking for E.T. was both self-evident and patently worthy, it's possible that I'm a victim of my own job description. Others don't inevitably agree. Some will opine that there are better ways to spend the money.

The book is there for inspiration and as a foundation, the fundamentals on which to build.

I get inspiration from my everyday life.