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In Nashville they’ve built a giant replica of the Parthenon, the temple in Greece that was built for Athena. I don’t know why they built a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville. I suppose there is a placard that explains it but I don’t like to get that close. It sits in a field just off downtown, just off the country-music recording studios and boot stores, and when I’m driving through town I swear I hear Carmina Burana bellowing from the building’s ribs. At night they light the thing so it makes long black shadows on the lawn and when you look at it, driving by as fast as you can, you can sense a monster slipping its fingers round one of the 46 pillars. I like to think people in Nashville meet on the lawn before the Parthenon once a year to sacrifice a virgin. They don’t kill her, really, but they give her a record contract so she basically becomes a sappy cocaine addict. In exchange the gods feed their industry for another year. I shouldn’t say things like this about the people in Nashville because it probably isn’t true. But that is something I think about when I [...]

There’s this trick in screenwriting/storytelling called “Saving the Cat” in which you have your protagonist do something good, say on page fifteen or so of your screenplay, that way when the movie ends, and your character beats back the bad guys, the audience will be glad for him, and feel contentment about the story they just experienced. It’s true in life too. It was troubling today, then, to see Alberto Contador bashing his teammate Lance Armstrong in a press conference in Spain. Contador won the Tour de France last week, and was supported by Team Astana, which had two other overall contenders in Levi Leipheimer and Armstrong. Armstrong, perhaps the crowd favorite, did have a realistic shot at winning his 8th Tour de France, but it wasn’t that realistic. Armstrong is now 37, more than ten years older than Contador. Contador proved aggressive from the start, breaking away from his own team on the first climb and gaining 8 seconds on Armstrong. This was not a move the team supported, but Contador was in it to win, and let everybody know it from the beginning. But cycling is a team sport. You need the other men on your team to [...]

Anne Jackson, over at Flowerdust.net sat both Mike Hyatt (CEO, Thomas Nelson Publishers) and I down to talk through what Mike and I will be sharing at the upcoming Story conference in Chicago. You can find this video on her blog, but I thought it was interesting enough to feature here as well. The event will come in just about the middle of the Million Miles tour, but I will be sharing most of the same material there that I will in the other 60 cities. Looking forward to the conference. Thanks, Anne, and Mike. Donald Miller and Michael Hyatt – Exclusive Interview on Story from Anne Jackson on Vimeo.

I wanted to post another chapter before I left for Nashville. I actually posted a good chunk of this chapter a couple months ago, but seeing as I turned in all the final edits yesterday, I thought I’d post the entire thing. It’s a short chapter, but it’s gotten some good feedback. There’s a small section in the middle of the chapter that calls back to an earlier chapter in the book. I attended a Robert McKee seminar, and in one of his lectures he addresses the power of conflict as a means of changing a character.  Thanks for helping me edit this book. Earlier I posed a few chapters, and based on your feedback made some critical changes, included excluding an entire chapter that some of you felt was confusing. Here’s another sample. Best, Don P.S. While in Nashville this week, I won’t be able to moderate comments. But when I get back, I’ll post them all in a flood.   A Million Miles in a Thousand Years Chapter 26 The Thing about a Crossing   It’s like this when you live a story: The first part happens fast. You throw yourself into the narrative and you’re finally out [...]