A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

by Donald Miller Narrated by Donald Miller

Overview

After the publication of his wildly successful memoir, Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller's life began to stall. During what should have been the height of his success, he found himself avoiding responsibility and even questioning the meaning of life. But when two producers proposed turning his memoir into a movie, Miller found himself launched into a new story filled with risk, possibility, beauty, and meaning.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years chronicles Miller's rare opportunity to edit his life into a great story and to reinvent himself so nobody shrugs their shoulders when the credits roll. When his producers begin fictionalizing Don's life for the film--changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative--the real-life Don starts a journey to make his actual life into a better story.

In this book, we have a front-row seat to Miller's journey--from sleeping all day to riding his bike across America, from living in romantic daydreams to facing love head-on, from wasting his money to founding a life-changing nonprofit.

Guided by a host of outlandish but very real characters, Miller teaches us:

• Why God hasn't fixed us yet
• The power of speaking something into nothing
• The redemptive beauty that can come from tragic circumstances
• How to get a second chance at life the first time around

Through heart-wrenching honesty and hilarious self-inspection, Miller takes readers through the life that emerges when it turns from boring reality into a meaningful narrative.

Editorial Reviews

For most of us, our entire lives are works-in-progress: We reevaluate the past even as we take tentative steps into the future. For spiritual writer Donald Miller, that process assumed strange form when he was approached by director Steven Taylor about transforming his Blue like Jazz into a movie. The challenge of systematically editing the story of his life not only taught him new lessons about where he had been but also awakened new insights about where he wanted to go. A most unconventional memoir about life's rare second chances.

Publishers Weekly

Miller, the accidental memoirist who struck gold with the likable ramble Blue Like Jazz, writes about the challenges inherent in getting unstuck creatively and spiritually. After Jazz sold more than a million copies but his other books didn't follow suit, he had a classic case of writer's block. Two movie producers contacted him about creating a film out of his life, but Miller's initial enthusiasm was dampened when they concluded that his real life needed doctoring lest it be too directionless for the screen. Real stories, he learned, require characters who suffer and overcome. In desultory fashion, Miller sets out to change his own life—to be the kind of guy who seeks out his father, chases the girl and undertakes a quest. Along the way, he comes to understand God as a master storyteller who doesn't quite control where his characters are going. An unexpected bonus of this book is Miller's insights into the writing process. Readers who loved Blue Like Jazz will find here a somewhat more mature Miller, still funny as hell but more concerned about making a difference in the world than in merely commenting on it. (Oct.)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170467570
Publisher:	Harper Horizon
Publication date:	09/28/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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