We are in our van on the way to Spokane. We were able to score a big passenger van with wifi so I get to update this blog at 70 mph. Tonight will be the 4th of 65 events, and so far the events are going well. I got slammed with a head cold but for some reason each night it doesn’t affect my talk. We are in that early part of the tour where the crew is getting to know each other, and so far so good. Out with me is Susan Isaacs, who opens the night with a monologue from her one-woman show (Think God Says Ha by Julia Sweeny) and then I come out and do a lecture that perhaps is more funny than academic, depending on the venue. Our road manager, Brent Gibbs, is remarkable and we couldn’t do this without him. Then my booking agent is out for a week and Susan’s husband is with us too. We have a World Vision/The Mentoring Project rep out whose name is Melody and hales from Nashville. Quite a little crew just to talk into a microphone.
Tonight we are at Whitworth so the talk might change a bit for the smartys. I’ll give this talk 65 times and I’m enjoying slowly tinkering with it to get the ideas down. Most of my books come out of lectures, and I’m already feeling something brewing. I’ve never had an opportunity to hone a lecture like this. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I’m done with it, but at least I’ll have something to say if suddenly I have to give a talk in an English-speaking country outside North America.
We opened with two events in Canada and I miss the healthcare jokes. Those funny socialists. I kept yelling “you lie” at people.
I’ll keep you posted as we go along. We won’t have this van for long before we switch to a bus, but I’m hoping the bus has wifi too.
If you’ve not bought a ticket to the event closest to you, you can do so at www.amillionmiles.com. We swing through Portland tomorrow, then back to Seattle, and I make a quick flight to Lectureship in Abilene, then we will do nearly a full week in Southern California.
I look forward to seeing you on the road.
Best,
Don
Susan invited me to join the tour bus in a few weeks. I’ll be with ya’ll just for a few days. Susan mentioned that the bus will have wifi so there ya go!
Don. Speed limit is 65. Please tell the driver.
The Canadians loved your healthcare jokes too.
At least, I did.
Wait, we are an hour behind. Punch it to 85 and I’ll watch out the back window.
I’m going to pick up a Million Miles right after work today. Reading this blog post, I’m saying that this fall is the season of Donald Miller. Just sayin…
Glad ya’ll are wearing your seatbelts…or at least Susan is.
Finished reading the manuscript I found. Love it! Hope to see ya’ll in or near DC. Wonder what your talk will have transformed into by then? (any idea when the manuscript-phone will be working again?)
Sir,
Can we please discuss the Atlanta date? What’s going on there… Not cool.
Ever and always,
Lydia
Don,
First off, I am so excited for you and your new book and tour. I have learned much from you. Best of health and stamina to you.
Maybe if you have some freetime on the road with your fancy wifi you can answer a question. What happened to the Minneapolis date on the Million Miles website? Is it not happening? Please know that that would leave me incredibly disappointed. But I may be willing to drive to Des Moines.
Thanks and safe travels,
Jessica (I found your MN manuscript and was challenged by the content greatly! Thanks!)
Don, awesome talk last night in Gig Harbor. It was so great to briefly meet you. I just graduated from Whitworth this May and I know you’ll find a group of students very receptive to your message. Enjoy Whitworth, it’s a beautiful campus filled with amazing people.
It’s a beauty of a day in the PNW, eh?
Looks like you are having great fun!
I am looking forward to seeing Susan just as much as hearing you. She cracks me up.
I read your book and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Even though I did get the flu the very next day…yes, possible implications there
)
Her book is up next. Gotta finish the one I am in, but I can’t wait to start Angry Conversations with God.
Keep laughing and take lots of vitamins!!
Woo hoo!! We’ll be seeing you Sunday night in Bothell.
Safe travels to you all,
-k
This is my second week teaching a creative writing course to kids who aren’t necessarily the most inspired, dutiful or apt to attend. A bunch of them missed the second half of this week because one of their teenage friends (whom I didn’t know) died of cancer the other day. Kinda makes teaching them about how to write stories, and wanting to teach how to express different emotions in writing seem a) important, b) probably far too important in fact for me to be tackling the job. I’m sure many of them will be back Monday. I have no idea what to say to them if it comes up in any way.
I trusted the local Christian book store in Ottawa to get A Thousand Miles in before Christmas (rather than just amazon.ca’ing it) and they got me two copies (one for my mom). I’m spending Friday night reading it. Halfway through. Found only the one “missing word” typo so far (p. 75, for the curious, unless Don meant it). It didn’t jump out and I was too busy seeing what happened in the next chapter to notice it almost, but I am an English teacher, so I didn’t quite miss it entirely.
The book’s stirring me slightly and making me uncomfortable and wanting to have a slightly more epic life. (that sentence should reveal fully how much of an accountant-who-wants-to-try-lion-taming I really am) Thanks so much for A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, Don.
I wrote a book this summer (my first). I think I put every single thing I ever knew and more into it. I think I wrote a book that people can’t finish reading. A few have finished it, but several haven’t.
Glad to hear everything is going well! I’ll see you all in Hollywood. Tell Susan and Larry I say hello! I’ll be posting the audio of our conversation for the Outlaw Preachers “precast” on my site next week. Check it out if you get the chance.
Grace, mercy, and peace.
Hi Don,
I had a great time reading your book…I am actually reading parts of it to my high school classes (and I am a Math teacher)…but I want them to create an EPIC story with their lives. I can’t wait until you are at my church in York, PA. If you are looking for great coffee and a place with wifi while you are here…I know a coffee shop you would LOVE…and you would love the story that goes with it!
Hey Don,
I got my copy of A Million Miles on Thursday from Barnes & Noble, and I’m loving it! Thanks for that. I was telling my wife about getting a chance to talk to you for a bit when you came to Minneapolis to share at the Upper Room a couple years ago, and how I’d like a chance to do that again. What IS going on with the MN date? If it’s a case of a venue not panning out, I know a couple places that would love to have you come and share. It’d be sweet to see you back here again.
Well wishes for the tour!
-Dan
Don, I’m so glad to hear that you will have plenty of time to hone your talk before you get to NYC. Please give Suzers a big hug from me and I look forward to seeing you both here next month!
hey! you should swing by ohio university! i’ve seen a few people with your book on their shelves, not including myself. so, uh, yeah. really
Don-
Absolutely loving A Million Miles and looking very forward to meeting you Sunday night in Bothell, WA. This past summer I had a *positive turn* myself and began writing a better story. I, too, cycled 4000 miles across the USA. I discovered that dreaming about “someday when” isn’t nearly as interesting of a story as seeing that dream fulfilled. To quote an author I’m reading right now, “And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal.” I underlined that. Starred it, too.
See you in Bothell. God bless.
Hi
I’m a college student & I wanted to listen to your message on God & artists that I saw on your website. It didn’t work, but is there another place I could find it? It’s a passion of mine and I guess I”m just trying to understand why God gifted me this way. And I am really looking forward to getting the new book soon (or just reading it at Barnes and Noble, because I’m a poor college kid with no money, haha)
p.s. Come speak in College Station, Texas!
Thanks!
Lindsay
Hi Don,
Will you be in Abilene late Tuesday night or even on Wednesday night? Some church planter friends and I would like to meet up with you for a drink, coffee, microbrew, whatever.
Brian
Hi Don – just reading through my second book of yours, “Searching for God knows What”…loving your perspective on things. Thank for making me “think” again and ask the good “why” questions through the book of Genesis. I appreciate you and what you’re doing.
God continue to use you,
Josh
Don,
DOn’t know if you have time or not, but I work at the church scheduled for your stop in Flint and I wanted to see if you and your crew wanted to catch a bite to eat before or after. I can try to think of some local color for your palate, although the selection is limited. Feel free to contact me at andrewa@centralnazarene.com.
Grace and Peace
Andrew Arp
Want me to bring my “cold-fighting” PNW homemade chicken noodle soup to Bothell tonight? I’m serious. I’m the Texas Oren Cousin who made you your quilt. Just let me know before noon, so it can simmer. I’m coming tonite to the 5 o’clock, but I can get the soup there by 4.
Soup is simmering.
You guys must have been at a rest stop when I read it…it read more like a 5-15 MPH than a 70 MPH…but that might be just because I’m a slow reader…
I’m excited to read the new book…this is what I look like when I think about it.
Don – Do you accept and answer direct email? I have long-winded question that I think you might have good perspective to answer…
Twitter: K10SF
ACU alum and recent reader of your work. Read that you were speaking at Summit and had always heard about Blue Like Jazz, so I added it to my to-read list. I loved the book! Even a suburban-did-the-career-thing-now-SAHM found much relevance in it. I look forward to reading your other books as well. Hope you enjoyed your time in Abilene. Pretty sure it looks a little different than Portland. Hopefully you figured it out for yourself, but you grow to love Abilene for the people. Not the scenery.
I should probably double-check your itinerary before making this accusation, and I never did find out where all your manuscripts are hidden, but with the limited information I have, I feel compelled to ask: do you guys have something against New England, or what? I KNOW you don’t. Emily Dickinson, anyone?
Just putting it out there that a visit to, say, Boston, or if you wanted to go more obscure, even Worcester, would be . . . really really cool.
it was just so good to see you in Vancouver. i think it’s a pretty rockin’ city too. though, i must say i’ve always wanted to visit Portland. you guys have all the cool bands. this may not be supporting you at all, but i think i am going to wait til your nice yellow book hits a nice smelling used bookstore. it’s always neat to go through pages that have been read by so many all ready, i think.
cheers,
leah
Hi Don~
It was apleasure meeting you in Des Moines Iowa. I don’t know if you recall the conversation I had with you about my teenage
daughter lindsey being a huge fan of yours. She currently lives at teen challenge in Kansas City? Anyways I gave her the book and I think she finished it in 2 days while Iwas visiting her. I also loved it too. I would read a million miles before I would go to bed and all I could do is laugh my head off! My dog sleeps with me so she is laying there listening to me I’m sure she is saying under her toy poodle breath mmyyy mom hasnt had so much fun laughing as long as I can remember. Anyways I received a letter from Linzi today to tell me she is rereading your book then she quotes you saying ‘Every creative person,and I think every person faces resistance when trying to create something good.Resistence a kind of feeling that comes against you when you point towards a distant horizon, is a sure sign that you are suppose to do the thing in the first place. The harder the resistance the more important the task must be.
How your book has impacted her? Her counselor is walking her thru somethings she just as well not face with trauma so the book is perfect timing for lindsey to write a new story.
Thank you for your honesty.
To bad the tour couldn”t be in K.C. too..
Blessings to you.
Hi Don;
Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve said anything. Let me just say that I’ve received all of your books from Shelly, another fan of yours, and I’m reading Searching for God Knows What now. I must say, out of all the books on Christianity I have been given recently, your books still are the most relatable to me. My life is topsy turvy, I threw my atheist boyfriend out and there ensued much bitterness and confusion, plus a restraining order. I joined a Christian church here in my hometown, which is known to be extremely conservative. I am not. So, overall, I really like the church, the congregation that is, but the pastor, well, I get tired of his asking for money for political causes which I don’t happen to share his belief in. I cannot reconcile asking for money against Proposition 8 here in California (the HOMO proposition) with what I interpret my God to be, in my heart. I thought the Lord loved everyone, and doesn’t necessarily care which two people love each other, as long as there is love. Godly love. Oh well…I could look for another church, but they are all pretty much the same in this area. So, I continue to read Scripture and try to make sense of what is happening in my life and in the world in general.
Sometimes, it is overwhelming, but I pick up a book of yours, and I feel comfort. That’s all I have to say. Much Love, Catherine