From Punk to Published: How I Chose to be a Writer

The evidence was compelling and from multiple sources: I was nothing special. Report cards never said Excellent or Above Average - I was average and below, noted for being behind my peers for struggling to tie my shoes and reading, and while I had a good year in 7th grade it wouldn’t last. A thirteen I was failing Science, English and History. I hid my report cards on two occasions to avoid revealing my stupidity to my family. Because I was the only one with that branding. Parents had graduate degrees. Dad was in Mensa. Mom’s creativity across all arts was astounding. One sister aced Latin and Physics. Another lived at school and crushed her classes. Another went to a gifted academy. Other relatives called me a “useless worker.’ PSAs said all kids had a talent that would be a difference maker and lead to an amazing life as a vet or judge.

Talent, I deduced, was a magical gift that someone else picked for you. Jedis were born Jedis. Mutants were born Mutants. Despite attempts to be bitten by a radioactive spider, I had no talents beyond a modicum of aptitude drawing cartoons. And even that gift was made pathetic when new friends could already draw full comics. I broke my pencils. School. Family. Talent. I was only allowed in the genius club with a visitor’s badge. 

When music dominated my mind I learned guitar and tried to play heavy metal . . . but I hit the talent wall real quick. I even sucked being a metalhead. Becoming an adult was doom of boredom, mediocrity, and toil.

Then I heard the Sex Pistols and The Replacements and a thousand other bands and by blood ignited. Punk welcomed those who sucked. Punk gave the finger to perfection. Punk said “wanna be a musician? Go do it. Try stuff. You don’t need expensive gear or a background in musical theory, just get a guitar and form a band and do it! Why are you waiting for someone else’s permission to do something that gives life meaning? Do it!” And for five glorious years I didn’t care what you thought - I had a band, we played gigs for beer, we recorded demos, we got on college radio (once), and even had a mild hit song for about one-day. Outside the confined of other people’s judgments, my creative life went nuts. My grades even improved. I even waged a war on my stupidity by ruthless study from undergrad and into a PhD program - I would prove every report card and naysayer that I may not be a genius but I can hang in the ring with anyone if I worked like hell.

The band fell apart, and I let that dream die, but another one sparked - I’d turned into a massive reader. My experience in the band required a lot of fevered research on bands, clubs, and more. That same ethos carried me into books and authors, especially crime, horror, and science fiction. I took classes and consumed them, picking up here and there notes on how people became writers. It was not encouraging. They started as teenagers. Their parents were i in the theater, or poets, or academics, or in broadcasting and TV, or were reading since they were three and writing award winning short stories through puberty. Enthralling as a narcoleptic librarian. Yet they were born to be writers. I was not. But were their punks in literature?

Yes. Jim Thompson, Harlan Ellison, and Dashiel Hammet and other celebrated writers cut their teeth by writing trash in pulp magazines before emerging as unique and wild writers. Harry Crews was from a rat poor family in rural Georgia, yet write novels, had a mohawk and tattoos, and wrote articles for Playboy. Charles Bukowski was postal worker who wrote poems and stories that sounded like conversations with my friends. Stephen King was the bestselling author in the USA and was trailer trash from Maine. Some had education, most worked a thousand jobs until their writing money was strong. No one chose them . . . they chose themselves. They were punks with typewriters. Maybe I could be one, too. 

Yet, something about this choice hurt. I had no band to roll with and share the insanity and shenanigans. When I sat at the computer, voices swarmed into my head -

Don’t do it, you’re not a writer, you’re going to fail at this just like with your band, and if you start now you’ll make an ass of yourself and finally the world will now your awful secret, that you’re not talented, your success too a hundred times more effort than if you were born to be an academic, but you’re not, and if you do this, if you sit down and write a story, everyone will know you are a fake, an imposter, a pretender who refuses to see that he just delusional because he is stupid. 

I with white knuckles gripping my chair. The next time I’d feel such a hurricane of shame and fear was two years later when I finally grabbed the phone to call AA  to get my life back. Same dread of exposure. Same fear of rejection. I sat, frozen and terrified, until I said outload

“Fuck you! No one is here! No one is watching me. Who cares if it sucks? I want to do it and I’m going to so shut the fuck up!”

And I wrote my first story. And it sucked. But it was fun. I only had the barest notion of what I was doing, but I did it in one sitting. And no one tossed me in purgatory. So, I wrote another. And another. ANd they sucked, but I could see some good in it (dialog was fun, making characters was amazing), as well as garbage (plot, grammar, and other structure issues). But in my research I’d found that most writers get better by writing more and reading more, so I drove myself to read and write like I was on tour, make the deadline, finish the story, on to the next one, take a pit stop to read, give the story everything you’ve got, have a blast, just keep going. 

Then, flowers bloomed in the trash. They smelled better. Some were almost pretty. So, I cut them free and shot them at publishers. And the rejections mounted, but so what? How many places refused to book us, play our stuff, accept our music on consignment. Did that stop us? Was I going to let them stop me? 

Nope. Old punks die hard.

Every Sunday I would go to the post office and send out my rejected stories to new markets, while I’d work on new stories during the week. Week in, week out, month after month. And the rejections mounted. And the fears began - I was not meant for this field. It was too hard, I was too old, and I hadn’t been writing since my first diaper. So, I gave myself a deadline - get one story accepted for publication this year, or just treat it as a hobby. The year was ending and my collection of rejections was growing exponentially with every new story entering the mix when I received an email from The Lamp Post a Southern California journal founded by a monk who championed the work of C.S. Lewis. They wanted to publish my story “Treasure Chest,” about a child being abandoned in a basement full of toys. 

It paid nothing, but neither had many of our gigs. 

It was sidestappled and seemed run as a personal project, like many punk zines.

It was an odd start from someone who felt his work was in the horror and crime vein, but then again, we used to play at falafel shops and county fairs who thought our best asset were our “costumes.” 

I did it. I was a published writer.

It wasn’t destiny. No one ever told me could be a writer. I chose to be one. 

The late Neal Barrett, Jr. once gave me some advice when I got a rejection slip that said I was not going to be a writer. “If this is what you want,” he said, “keep DOING it. Period. There is a saying (don’t know who said it): No one can make you write, and no one can make you stop. This is the most basic and sincere advice I can give . . .”

Me too, Neal. 

You too, reader. 

Don’t wait to be chosen. Chose to be a writer. And get ready for a wild ride.