Think of the 🤍 like button as "I read the whole thing"—or just "I'm happy to be here."

Notes is for... Notes, a community of 800 and growing, paid subscriptions reduced to $33/year, connecting with other memoirists and more

Springtime in the Golden State

California has had the wettest winter that I can remember since ‘83-84, and the coldest here in the Bay Area in my lifetime, with buckets of rain (even this week!), snow on Mt Tamalpais and ice on the dock in Sausalito. While last year we hardly got any rain and the hills were already Golden State gold by mid-April, now we’re enjoying a spring of a thousand-million shades of the brilliant, vibrant, green of new life.

I’ve been doing even more writing and less of pretty much everything else—kicking out a chapter of memoir every week, and I’ve even developed an actual morning routine, for the first time in my life, which includes working out almost every day, in the morning, before breakfast! Go figure.

Notes is for… Notes

Since the launch of Substack Notes there’s been a lot of talk about what Notes is for. I think the mission for us as we use Notes should be to support each other as writers.

I also think that, well, it’s for whatever it gets used for, and that Notes is for… notes.

800—on our way to 1,000!

Thanks in part to Substack Notes, there are now more than 800 of you—subscribers to my Substack, that is, including something still shy of fifty paid supporters.

Numbers don’t matter all that much, but I do want as many people to find and read my work as possible, so if you are really digging what I’m putting out, please considering sharing one of your favorite pieces of mine with a friend, on your own social media today, or on Notes.

If you haven’t checked out Notes yet, it’s a great way to interact with the vibrant Substack community, find new writing, and read and share shorter pieces—as well as the best way to reach me, aside from commenting on a post directly. If you want to find me on Notes, go to my profile, scroll down until you see Latest, and click on Notes (sorry there isn’t a way to link to that directly yet).

Paid subscriptions are now only $33.33/year

To celebrate this milestone, I’ve lowered the price of an annual paid subscription to just $33.33. That’s barely more than half of the cost of a monthly subscription over the course of a year, so there’s a big incentive to go annual.

Paying subscribers get full access to all of my memoir material immediately, whereas free subscribers have to wait a little while before they unlock. You’ll also get access to certain longer pieces like What Is Intuition? and What Keeps Me From Fucking Up My Life?

This all continues to be an experiment and a work in progress. Please comment ⬇️ below if you have feedback—and in the meantime, please consider becoming a paying subscriber, like all of these fine folks who have since my last update: Ghazi, Aaron, Robert, Roddy, Gio, Shawn, Mike, and my father Duncan. THANK YOU!

Be generous with your likes ❤️

If you read a piece the whole way through, take a moment to click the “Like” 🤍 button—and, even better, leave a comment and/or post something on Notes.

How else am I—or anyone else—going to know whether are enjoying what I write? I want to know! So, go nuts, and like everything you read (and not just my stuff!)

Podcast update

Episode #20 is coming out shortly, with YouTube pilates and yoga superstar Sean Vigue, and I’m proud of the interviews I’ve done with folks like fellow writer T. Callahan, coach and inventorAnthony David Adams, over-sexed author and bonobo advocate Chris Ryan, eco-utopian and gender-futurist Kim Stanley Robinson, former crack addict and ultra-ultra-runner Charlie Engle, addiction realist Dr Adi Jaffe, and consciousness expert and tech refugeeScott Britton ...and I'm feeling to change things up a bit.

While I love doing interviews and have gotten to know some of my teachers and heroes, the podcast is also a bit of a distraction from writing. It’s also become clear to me that my motivations for doing the podcast were mixed. I’ve found myself wanting to draft off of guests’ audience—and being disappointed when they didn't promote ‘enough,’ which just a super lame place to end up. I mean, we all have to promote ourselves these days, but I also just want to do what feels good organically and not get dragged into a ‘growth’ mentality. Overall, I’m taking whatever disappointment I’m feeling as a message to re-examine the question of why do a podcast, with whom and about what. TBD for sure.

Other Memoirists on Substack

One of the best things about Substack is, well, as Minda Lane put it in a note to me, “the potential of language to create a connection between strangers…” I’m way more OK being alone these days than I ever was in the past—and, also, it’s good not to be alone. Here are some of my favorite writers and memoirists here on Substack:

DID YOU SLEEP WITH THE MODELS? by SAM STAGGS • Out & Back • Michael Mohr's Sincere American Writing • Recovering • The Loaf, with Tim Kreider • The Recovering Academic • Homegrown Humans Newsletter • My Own Private Waste Land • Wild Life with Amy Jay • Inner Workings • Just Enough to Get Me in Trouble • Tangentially Speaking with Chris Ryan • Why, California? • Men, Myself, & I: Revelations of an Opened Marriage • Cured: The Memoir • Soaring Twenties Practice Space — give 'em an eyeball!

Finally, What Can I Do For You?

Are there topics that you’d like to hear more about? Some way you’d like to be more connected? Some writing you’re working on yourself? How can I help? Know any other memorists writing on Substack? Comments below ⬇️