Luck's Got Nothing to Do with It

A semi-fictitious representation of my writing process, with the twist as to how this piece was created. Note that I plead the fifth on what is real about this, and what is not.

I knew a guy when I was about sixteen. He was a writer, a pretty damn good one at that. His name, I’ll refrain from disclosing. This guy… He was… He was something else. If we needed an idea for a script, or a video, or really just an assignment in Theatre Arts, he’d immediately begin pacing and ask myself, or any of our friends to just shout ideas at him, through all of this chaos he’d manage to create a story using random words we throw out, even though most of them were expletives and usually incredibly inappropriate for a mind such as his. Throughout all the things we yelled he managed to find a diamond in the sand, he was lucky…

But he did have his faults. He knew he was a good writer, and an even better idea creator, and he used that to his advantage. He found himself with the capabilities to become a Pathological Liar, and we all knew. When we’d approach him on something, on anything, as we spoke, you could almost see the cogs in his head moving back and forth, and up and down, and every which way you could imagine, but all of a sudden something would stop them. We never knew what it was, it was like something just ruptured the thought process of his brain and made him dig into his memory to find the true story behind it all. And his words always checked out, even if they had intended to be lies. He was a lucky one.

He could read people like no other. He could always tell when you were lying to him. Takes one to know one, right? Not so much, he was a people-reader at heart. If his eyebrow popped at you, you could tell he did not believe the words that were coming out of your mouth. If you raised your voice at him, or got angry, he always laughed, backed off, and walked away knowing he got to you. He was gruesome when it came to finding out, and knowing information. No one’s secrets were safe with him. He knew everything about everyone, and there was nothing you could do about it. A single glance between him and you and he could tell you you’re entire life story in a matter of minutes, abridged, and always with a margin of error. But he was lucky, and he always got it right.

He liked to write, a lot. He said it was the only thing that kept him sane. This is accurate, to a point. It was also the thing that made him insane. He would be mid-conversation with someone, and POP! Just like that he’d have an idea for an entire script, and you’d be lost in translation until he finished his entire summary of that plot, not so much because you cared, he knew you did not. It was only because everything he ever said, he remembered. And that’s why he was such a good liar, he never changed his story. When he’d get a new idea, he’d spend days on end just sitting at his desk, or in his bed, or in his car, and he’d dwindle on this story. He’d play it over countless times until he knew everything that happened, and every possible outcome of the story. He would create multiple different endings, and he was able to delve into the deepest parts of his character’s psyches. This became dangerous, because these characters would personify themselves inside of him, and he would become them. Gives a whole new meaning to the cliché about how every character has a little bit of the writer in them. This writer had every character inside him, so obviously his personality was a mixture of anger, and happiness, and everything in between. And do you know what the funniest thing was about his characters? In the end, every single one of them had a tragic death, his motto was “If everything about them isn’t exciting, they aren’t worth writing about.” And he was a lot like his characters. But he was lucky.

Not only did this friend of mine love to write, but he seemed to have a knack for attracting girls. By the dozens he’d have girls at his feet, but he was always hesitant. He’d pick one out of the crowd, and then brush off the rest, he was a man of principle, and did not think it was fair for him to keep girls waiting on him, besides, he knew there were plenty of fish in the sea, but did he believe that himself? No matter. I could always find him in a conquest with a different girl, usually this conquest was successful, in however he defined successful. I believe one day he told me: “How I judge a successful relationship is if I’ve learned something useful.” And that, he will take with him to his grave… Never was one for keeping girls though. He always knew when the relationship was over, and he always knew weather him, or the girl, would be hurt in the end, and usually it was him… He was not so lucky here… But within days he would find a new girl, and for that… He was very lucky.

He was a drinker… A heavy one too. He loved the taste of beer, and the feeling he got when Whiskey entered his belly. At one point in his young life he could have called himself an Alcoholic, he got drunk on a nightly basis, and never once would he admit it until he woke up the next morning with a hangover hard enough to make any man want to smash his head into a window. He was the same age as me, and he never got caught doing it. He was lucky.

He had a weird process with writing though. When inspiration would not come to him from an outside source, but from inside his own jumbled up, mixed up, and twisted mind, he would go… a bit crazy. I always told him “You should see someone about that.” To which he would just shrug his shoulders and tell me to screw off and that he was fine. But he was not fine, you could see it in his eyes. All he wanted to do was be alone so that his characters can manipulate his body in all sorts of contorted ways and he can yell and scream and shout and no one will hear him. All in due time he’d whisper to himself, or was it really him whispering? He’d break down and cry at these times when he was alone. He’d curl himself up in a ball and probably find the nearest hard object to smack himself in the head with. -He was violent, but he’d only ever hit one other man in his life, and it was to defend his friends, he had a nice shiner from that incident too… - After the initial crying phase the guy would leap up! He’d raid his mother’s medicine cabinet taking every aspirin he could see, and adding various other drugs and pills, and sometimes even cough syrups to the mix, and then he’d wait, as he stood, stark naked in the cold shower, for the drugs to kick in… He should have died on multiple occasions from this alone… But he was lucky.

After he had rightfully thrown himself into a fit, and called many-a ex girlfriends, and pleaded for forgiveness just so he could explain to them how sorry he was for screwing everything up, only to be told “It wasn’t you… it was me.” He was too perfect for them… Always… And then he’d cry some more, he’d cry with his bloodshot eyes wild and dilated and he’d see the world much differently than any man or woman would ever dare to see the world. And then he would see the biggest curse of all. Alcohol… He would drink himself a beer to calm down, and think. Mixing drugs and alcohol surely would kill any grown man… But he was lucky…

After hours of his right brain pleading with his left brain to not kill himself right on the spot, a third voice from the lower back part of his spinal cortex would yell “ENOUGH” and he’d stand up, smoke a cigarette to clear his at, at this point he would be coming down from this “high” of sorts and he’d sit down and he’d write. And he’d write, and he’d edit, and he’d type, for hours on end, non stop. He would not give up until he collapsed from exhaustion, or the piece was finished. Of course he would occasionally get up and pace, and call someone and ask them to rapid-fire spit words at him so he could come up with an idea. As much as he isolated himself, he was never really alone. He was an extrovert who so desperately wished he could be an introvert… And as he wrote he would barely consider the words on his page until they were completed, and he’d backtrack… never. If he typed something it was because the universe wanted him to. And when he was done. He’d scan his writing, and it would always be satisfactory. He found pride in his own work… He was lucky…

One time, this guy did everything right, the way it was all supposed to be done. But it was not enough. He was still left wondering what was wrong… He stole a cigarette from his mother’s store as per usual, and he smoked it. He knew how bad it was for him, but he never quite found the motivation to stop. So he finished his cigarette, and then he returned to his piece. It was missing a signature. So he signed it… But that was not enough. He paced for hours on end thinking of what could be wrong. He repeated the process driving himself into a psychopath’s stupor, he raided his mother’s liquor cabinet until he could no longer drink! He passed out and woke up next to his computer desk. He had not saved his document. He printed it out, and as it was printing, he thought desperately about what he needed to do next after writing, after hours and hours of pacing and not knowing what to do, he finally realized what he needed to do… He got lucky…

And how did I find the inspiration to write this? Well let’s just say… I got lucky.

Author's Note

I checked everything for grammar and spelling, if there is anything wrong, let me know. I'm aware there are a few instances where I did not use the correct terms, those instances were either for dialogue (which is placed where it is on purpose) or for effect. This was intended to be read as a stream of conscious.
Oh, and Theatre is supposed to be spelled that way, for those of you who do not know, people who are "Theatre Kids" spell it Theatre, not Theater. That's the place.