I'm told by various sources that the ticket will only be valid for 12 months from date of issue. So the actual return date cannot be more than 12 months after the ticket is issued?

I'm in a similar quandary where my return date is about 5 months after the outbound. The outbound is now bookable but I'd have to wait till August to book the return. And given the scarcity of awards I'm not even thinking about trying to get AA to hold the booking till August. I suppose in this case the insertion of random dates, only to change later to the actual dates, for the return won't work as the actual dates are outside the 12 month validity period?