Under Construction
Changes are coming to my Substack newsletter, plus a special discount offer to join The Attic Club.
For the first dozen or so years of my writing life, I was an amateur poet, songwriter, and blogger. I wrote short fiction, too, though it was also mostly bad. When I figured out how to get paid for my words after grad school, it was as a news and feature writer. And then, when I needed to get paid more to feed my ever-growing family, I became a marketing copywriter.
In my three years of writing on Substack, I’ve worked hard to find my voice as a storyteller, independent of who or what exchanges money for my efforts. Publishing Big Head on the Block was a step in the right direction. I wrote the stories as I would’ve told them over a couple of beers with my friends at a late-night campfire or on the front porch smoking a cigar and reminiscing on the Good Ole Days.
For the past eight or so months, in a mostly failed attempt to engage more regularly with my readers, I’ve written The Weekly Big Head column. It didn’t take that long, though, for me to realize that I’m not much of a columnist, despite what I thought I learned from watching Marley & Me in college.
In between columns and dispatches to my Attic Club, I’ve tried to write action-packed stories, like the ones in the “Paddlehands” series, humor, like “Farting in Bed and Other Deadly Sins,” and thoughtful essays, like my search backward through dreams to find the high-school teachers who served as my first guides in the Ways of Wonder nearly 20 years ago.
Despite what I’ve sought to do as a writer, the dividing line between genres tends to blur once my words are on the page.
What I have discovered in writing more regularly on this platform is that I have the most fun when I’m feeding my curiosity. And that, rather than building an army of voracious readers, I’m more interested in assembling a clubhouse full of other wonder junkies to play with.
In the next weeks, I’ll be re-organizing my Substack in the hope of providing you with words, ideas, and stories that captivate and entertain while not being bogged down by my bad habit of self-indulgence.
I’ll be taking a break, in some ways, though still writing dispatches to my dear friends in the Attic, to whom I’ve already teased some of what I’m planning for Storytime with Big Head in 2025.
In the meantime, you can help by answering a few short questions in my reader survey.
As an extra incentive to come hang out, I’m also offering you a discount, through the first week of April, to come and join my crew of paying subscribers. Bennies included.
Oh yeah, and about that ping-pong book I’ve been telling you about since summer. I recently learned that later this year Timothée Chalamet is set to star in a biopic of Marty Reisman, who many claim to have been the greatest American ping-pong player ever. The film will be directed by Josh Safdie, one-half of the Safdie Brothers, in his first film since 2019’s Uncut Gems. (The other, Benny, will be directing a biopic of MMA fighter Mark Kerr).
Looks like the pressure’s on to get my fully fleshed-out version of Paddlehands done before I’m ripped off for a second time. I mean, where do you think the idea for Balls of Fury came from?
I’m excited to make up—and, hopefully, have you enjoy—whatever comes next.
Yours,
Big Head
Psst. You can also take advantage of my referral program to earn access into The Attic Club.