I would.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not crazy or suicidal and I'm not saying I would kill myself for a vanity label, but for a Simon and Schuster imprint I just might consider it .   .   .

Men have certainly died for less.  Over four thousand Americans sacrificed their lives so that a megalomaniac with a daddy complex could one up his old man in Iraq.  At the very least sacrificing yourself for a book deal would benefit your legacy instead of Halliburton's.

The book business is so competitive that sending off a few chapters of that first novel is career suicide. Fiction is the "f" word of the industry and you'd have an easier time talking sense into a Republican than getting that first novel published.

With that in mind, I have decided to go the non-fiction route and recreate the greatest adventure ever:  Ernest Shackleton's 800 mile open boat voyage to save his men trapped on the Antarctic outpost of Elephant Island. This from Wikipedia:

"To reach South Georgia, Shackleton's boat party would have to traverse some of the most tempestuous and storm-swept seas in the world, with almost unceasing gales. They could expect hurricane force winds and heaving waves—the notorious Cape Horn Rollers—measuring from trough to crest as much as 60-foot (18 m). Worsley wrote: "We knew it would be the hardest thing we had ever undertaken, for the Antarctic winter had set in, and we were about to cross one of the worst seas in the world".

April 24, 2016 is the centennial of this historic voyage, which gives me plenty of time to reconstruct the James Caird as well as find sponsors and a book deal.

Here are my ten steps to publication and the best seller list:

1.) Design a kick-ass professional looking website detailing my plans so I am taken more seriously.

2.) Contact local boating clubs, charity organizations and college professors who specialize in the history of polar exploration for references and support.

3.) Contact local newspapers for inclusion in the "Local Nutjob to Attempt Death-Defying Feat" section of the Sunday paper.

4.) Use the newspaper story as collateral to get on local TV and radio.

5.) Use all of the above to get some articles published in magazines like Men's Journal.

6.) Contact companies for sponsorships with my newly buffed up resume.

7.) Contact literary agents from a position of power.

8.) Land a book deal.

9.) Complete expedition.

10.) Shamelessly shill my book on any TV show that will have me, up to and including the The Steve Wilkos Show.

Admittedly even published works of polar adventures are tough sells to the general public. To combat this stigma I plan to shamelessly rip off the adventure yarns that do sell. No one considered hiking the 2,100 mile long Appalachian Trail a barrel of laughs until Bill Bryson wrote about it in A Walk in the Woods. What Bill Bryson did for blisters, I intend to do for frostbite: make it funny.

I plan to whet America's appetite for my witticisms by live blogging my adventure via my satellite phone. While a typical polar adventurer would blog something boring like "Covered 30 miles today. Can't feel my fingers," I plan to liven it up a little:

"My little toe just fell off today. Oh well, it would have been a casualty of evolution eventually, anyway. Guess I'm just ahead of the Darwinian curve!"

It's like my mother always told me: no one likes a whiner.

I don't want to repeat the same mistakes as Tom Avery, the man who recreated Peary's trip to the North Pole. In an interview with Men's Journal, he spent the whole time whining about how "terrified" he was and forgot to hawk his book.  That's no way to market yourself. Americans are sick of the whole sensitive guy in touch with his feelings cliche. If we have to watch one more Spidey-man whining for his Mary Jane, I think we'll collectively hurl as a nation. What America needs is a good old-fashioned dose of the wise-cracking, larger than life action hero from the '80s. Would Stallone or Schwarzenegger ever cop to fear? I don't think so.

Does death scare me?

I am an atheist so it's not like I have to worry about demons sodomizing me with pitchforks if a 60 foot wave takes me down.  All that would happen is I get out of taking out the trash for all eternity and then I would turn to dust like the rest of Earth's creatures, and really, how scary is that?

Then again, Stephen King did write a novella called The Mist. Could The Dust be next on his agenda of banalities to make horrific?

Seriously though, the only scary thing  about dust is the thought of having to hear that damn Kansas song for the thousandth time on the classic rock station.

So what would you do: risk it all for glory or cling to life like a baby suckling on his mama's teat?