Here’s some stone-cold, sober writing. Let’s see if you can tell the difference. I suspect you won’t. I’m always all over the map.
At the bottom of this holiday blog is a link to the Punks Christmas Card chapter. This was a unique ten days. While writing this I realized I’ve never before conceived and written fiction and then published it without a long break between first draft and subsequent drafts which often number in double digits. Some chapters have more than nine lives before you see them. I know this chapter is half-baked.
Dipping my toe into Punks writing after weeks of criminal thinking has sparked my interest in the Punks projects I’ve mentioned previously. Don’t get too excited. Refer back to the previous paragraph. I don’t rush things.
I don’t even know if this Punks Christmas Card is good or entertaining but it’s what I came up with on short notice. I made a midnight promise. The next day I wondered, ‘What the fuck did I write last night? Do I need to delete that shit?’ I read it with my coffee. It was fine. But then I had to write a story. The good news was I knew the main plot, Tina versus Jackie.
Later that day, I began writing and got into the zone. I am literally wearing out keyboards on my laptops. My current Chromebook is missing the e,r,t, a,s, & d. The letters are worn off. I’d have to check but I think my last Chromebook and the Dell before that lost the same letters. Has anyone done the research on the most used letters? I think I might know what they are.
After I knocked out 7K of a bare-bones story in 72 hours and let it simmer for a few days. Then I went back for a second pass adding 5000 words in a rewrite. This is as close to a first draft as anyone will even see from me.
Another realization I had was this, I suspect 80% of the readers in this group are fans of Joe Theroux and have little or no interest in the crime writing I do. I’m sure there are some who crossover but I think this is primarily a Punks group… and that’s fine.
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—- PUNKS IS PERSONAL —-
I call Punks my opus. At 1.33 million words how can it not be? It’s also my most personal work. Christmas stories are usually family stories. While writing this holiday tale I pondered how much of my personal experience I put into this fictional world.
A while back I received a few messages from readers asking questions, even expressing condolences, because they believed on some level that I was writing autobiographically. I wrote an author note addressing this at the time. I am not Joe and Joe is not me.
That said, this story is still personal for me. I put my MC at the same age as me, from my hometown, oldest of five, Boston sports homer, a music fanatic, and all the ‘write what you know’ stuff that I packed into this epic journey.
So many smaller stories within Punks are from my life. I fictionalize and give them to Joe. In chapter one of ATYP, the clomping of mounted police at the Civic Center as Joe waits in line to buy Queen and Thin Lizzy tickets with the fan’s homegrown security system, happened in my junior year of high school. In the final chapter of ATYP, Radiohead, the CB radio prank Joe played on his father… I did that. My dad’s CB radio was my fucking nemesis in high school, keeping me up at night. 10-4 good buddy. Now go fuck yourself.
Being bullied and learning to fight back is a tale from my youth but Joe’s is considerably more interesting and violent. Being both okay with girls and clueless at times… totally me. Trust me, Joe gets far, far, far more tail than an average man like me could ever muster.
That doesn’t mean I can’t fictionalize it.
I bake my love of cooking into my main character and give him some of my attitudes on life. By now, everyone must know I’m a recovering Catholic with pointed opinions. I try to make them more jokey than serious hoping to not offend but I know my people. The Papists can be thin-skinned.
When I was growing up we never ate meat on Friday. Not just Good Friday, every damn Friday. That’s why fish & chip joints are huge in New England… not just the proximity to the ocean. I still eat fish most Fridays. It’s a culturally Catholic thing I’m cool with and it’s healthy if you’re not deep frying.
I have always been a caregiver. I helped raise my younger siblings, not three sisters, two and two. I lost a brother but not at age nine. He was twenty-three, drugs and alcohol. I then raised two sons, the cook in the house then and now. I gave Joe that nurturing gene.
For the past 16 years, I’ve been the guardian of my oldest son, a former law school student and high-functioning schizophrenic whose life went off the rails in 2007. He’s wasting his life away living with his Dad. It is depressing at times but I plow through it. What choice do I have?
If I ever chose to write my son’s story it would be a major WTF read but I don’t have the energy to manage the emotions that would conjure. It is truly heartbreaking. That factoid from my life will give you some insight into my ‘mental health’ writing and how I came to focus on Joe’s trauma and how he manages it… or fails to keep it under wraps. I was also married to a vitriolic bi-polar woman for 22 years, the mother of my children, but I have no interest in reliving those years in my writing.
Where’s the entertainment in well-adjusted characters who do no wrong and lead charmed lives? I prefer people with problems. That’s also what I know.
What I’m trying to say is… I have fucking real stories. Even if you live a relatively ordinary life like me you can take the highlights and lowlights and make them into an interesting tale if you’re willing to step outside of the story and make it about someone else. That’s how this Punks thing started in 2013 and I have not yet stopped.
Once Joe leaves Providence in chapter 15 of 132… the story becomes far more fictionalized.
I had done 80k of ‘write what you know’ and then it took off from there. Never could I have imagined a million words.
Here’s what I’m thinking today.
I will surely rewrite and republish this punk odyssey elsewhere and hopefully expand my audience. I’m considering renaming the first fifteen chapters, Sons Of Providence, and having All The Young Punks be a New York book. That’s where the real punks enter the story. Postcards and Venice were once one story. I think I need to do more of that.
This will take time. For you old Punks Readers, I can make available the new writing as it comes, far sooner than I would publish it on whatever platform I choose. I would simply use this process, an email that leads to a direct link. It’s not ideal but it’ll do.
I will write more about my long-term plan at another time… but that’s what I’m thinking today as I juggle multiple projects. As always, my thinking is subject to change.
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—- PUNKS CHRISTMAS CARD —-
As I stated above, Christmas stories are almost always about family. Even when Joe was far from home in Mexico and Buenos Aires his family played a role because he had never been away from home for the holidays. He missed his sisters and they expressed their unhappiness with the distance.
I happen to love writing the Theroux family scenes, away from the bands and the girls, but I don’t know if Punks readers share that feeling. I suspect a fair number were drawn in by the music angle but I don’t know how that breaks down. For me, that’s just different relationships to write about and that’s what this entire story is, hundreds of relationships over two decades.
The Theroux family relationships made Joe who he is. So, if you like his sisters and their interactions you will enjoy this chapter.
There was a point in the middle of all this writing, maybe five years ago, when it dawned on me that I gave Joe a life I wish I lived. That’s a strange realization to have. Then I thought, ‘and I gave him the relationships I don’t have. My family is scattered from New England to Florida to Arizona and points between. It’s just how our lives played out.
In this Christmas story, the dialogue between Joe and T in their first scene is partially from Punks chapter 36. The reunited couple is in NYC dealing with her shitshow of a life, divorcing the Wall Street crook and selling her art gallery. That scene is the setup for the Christmas chapter I never wrote. I know why I omitted it. I didn’t want to introduce Joe’s sisters to readers as adults.
When I do the rewrite of Punks this will be included as will other chapters I’m working on. His sisters will someday be folded into those late chapters in small doses. Publishing Punks first was a mistake. Also, Kat Price is digging up information on Joe’s old friends who sent letters to Guerilla Records, NYC. Those reunions would happen in the Punks timeline. So, when I hook you up with new chapters in 2025, it will often be work that will someday be woven into what you’ve already read in the next rewrite.
There are a dozen sidebar author comments in this piece. When you see highlighted text in my document there is a comment to the right. The comment window will be visible on large screens. On phones, you must click on the highlighted words to see the text. I suggest you skip past them to not distract from the story and go back later if you wish. I’m certain there are a few comments that will interest you… teasers.
I had intended on adding those thoughts to this blog but opted to leave them in the document as this rambling went too long.
If this short story is not great, consider it your crappy Christmas gift for 2024. We all get one, every year. We’re just too polite to say so. You’ll understand what I mean at the end of my Christmas card.
Merry Christmas if that’s your thing, or Chanukkah Hanukkah. Can you chosen people please pick a spelling? Happy Holidays and Kwanzaa and all the others. Don’t make me name them all. I’m not that woke. I'm not going dark but I have a lot going on so I'll be scarce.
I wish everyone a Happy New Year. We could use one.
Here’s a link for your stocking. Punks Christmas Card