A Million Miles...

I promise I'll write an original blog post of substance soon, but before then I thought I'd plug Donald Miller's great A Million Miles in a Thousand Years book, which comes out in paperback this today. Highly recommended and easy to read. Check it.

The Amazon Link


What story are you telling? from Rhetorik Creative on Vimeo.

A New Year. Blah blah blah.

Most peoples' inaugural post in 2010 looks something like this: I want to do this. Or: Last year I did this. Not many of the blogs I have read this year have inspired me or interested me much. Except for one. By one of my favorite authors. Yes. You're right. Donald Miller. I got his newest book for Christmas, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He's more mature and thoughtful than before, and his life is so much more interesting. The main point of his new book is to do things that create a good story, or a great one. Before two moviemakers approached him about making Blue Like Jazz into a movie, Miller's life was boring and uneventful. He sat around, was fat and lazy, and wrote because he needed money. After meeting with the filmmakers and being told his life was too boring for a movie, his life changed. He hiked the Incan trail in Peru, biked across America, fell in love, and basically transformed his life by thinking about how he wanted his life to be a good story, or, essentially, living a good story.

For the details and a taste of Miller's great writing, read the book. I said all of that to say that Don's new year's post is the only one that inspires me to do anything or piqued my interest. He encourages his readers in his book and through his blog to do whatever it takes to make good memories and do big things. Here's a quote from his post (which comes in two parts):

"Scenes in coffee shops are boring. Movies should be memorable, visual, exciting and different. Now I see it in movies all the time. Writers place characters on top of buildings, in beautiful parks, on busses that bend like an accordions in the middle and so on. Anything to make the scene more memorable, and thus the dialogue more meaningful.

The same principle is true in life. Many of the scenes in your life you remember best were the times you jumped off bridges or smoked a pipe on the roof. "

Miller then went on to give four pointers on how to create memorable scenes. Really, this is just a plug for him, I guess, but this is what resonated with me.

1. Say yes to awkwardness.
2. Take the conversation to a different place.
3. Don't be embarrassed.
4. Don't be afraid to get wet, cold, dirty, or hot.

He expounds on all of those points, and really, the best thing to do is to read his posts. Here and here.

I want to take his advice and write down some things that I want to do this year. Then I need to create an inciting event to make myself do them. I think, though, that I will have to put some thought into what I want to do. Because before I can do all of the really big things that I want to do, like driving all of Route 66 (Cars inspired me), I need some money. Which requires a job or a rich relative dying and leaving me all their money, of which I have neither.

But keep me accountable, okay? I need some people to bring along with me on whatever adventures I will undertake this year.

This post is my take on New Years'. I don't really go much for New Year's resolutions. They never really work. Once I decided to stop biting my fingernails at New Years. It has decreased, but there is still progress to be made. :) So. This is why I want to live a better story. I am tired of wanting to do things and never doing them. Donald Miller changed his life and his story by forcing himself to do things and telling people what he was going to do.

This is my attempt at that.