"Why do you write this shit?" he asked.
Sean McLaughlin was my best friend - always had been, ever since primary school days. We'd met when we found ourselves seated next to each other in our very first classroom; two very small, very apprehensive and quite scared boys, both missing our mothers but also curious to find out what this big school thing was all about. We bonded in the sand pit, when we shared out a few toy cars and tried to build the Masters of the Universe parking garage, and were firm friends from then on.
In the years that followed, we were the Terrible Twins, both red-heads, always in trouble but always with each other's backs. The trouble was never really bad, usually the result of an impulsive idea that somehow turned out to be no brainwave. But we were always there for each other.
So when he asked me that question when we were both in our forties, it never crossed my mind to take offence. Things had moved on a long way since those school days. He was a salesman in hardware items, travelling to building companies and architects, to sell fittings for doors and windows, cupboards and drawers. All needed but rarely thought of. Not a sexy job, but he was good at it.
I was a writer. Shortly after I got married in my early twenties, I wrote a novel and - with absolutely no clue about how things worked, found an agent in the phone directory and blithely sent it off. Needless to say, my amateurish first attempt never got published, but the agent somehow liked my style, and found odd bits of work for me. It might surprise people, but companies that need something professionally written for them need to find writers from somewhere, and have little desire to go searching through the internet for someone who might be able to write the right thing within the time needed at a reasonable expense. So they contact a literary agent to do that for them.
While I was waiting on tenterhooks for a publisher to realise how brilliant my first novel was and rush to offer me millions for the rights to publish it before Hollywood beat them to it, my newly acquired agent offered me a couple of commissions. One was for a trade magazine that was directed at the motor trade, another for a magazine that was sent out free to every printing company. Trade magazines exist solely on advertising, and both needed articles written on a specific aspect of their business that would cosy up to their advertisers, didn't have the in-house manpower to do it, and so farmed it out. I had no clue about either business, but I did have the nous to go and research it, find out who was involved and give them a phone call for their view on the topic in question. It wasn't particularly hard, and the idea that they might get their views into a magazine that went out to all their customers, made it very easy for me to pick their brains. Hell, they couldn't help me enough.
The money was very fair, and very welcome. I was working in a store as assistant manager, hating every moment of it, and the idea of making a little money on the side was more than attractive. So I gave it my best shot.
And the magazines were very happy with my work. Soon, more and more commissions came in, some of the clients offering to work directly with me in order to cut out the agency fees. But, I couldn't help feeling loyalty to the woman who had given me my first break, and simply routed any direct commissions through her. She paid back my loyalty by bringing me in on a commission from a television company who had all the footage and interviews put together into a finished program, but needed a script for a voice-over artist to read to string it all together. That's how most non-acted programs work in TV. Luckily it was on a subject that I'd always been interested in and could talk a little about it. The broadcast slot was already set in place and advertised, the sound studio was booked, and they were over a barrel to get it finished in time. So they gave me a try. In return I gave them a script they liked, and suddenly I was a scriptwriter as well.
That's how the jobbing writer business works. You get lucky, you work hard, you give the clients what they want when they want it, and as thanks they give you money - and sometimes they refer you to others in the same business. And occasionally, the money's enough that you can try and go out on your own and say thanks, but no thanks to the store that's been draining your life-force for the past five years.
But absolutely none of that was what Sean was referring to.
"Shit?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
I was no longer inordinately proud of every single thing I wrote. That passed years ago. But I never considered my writing to be shit either. Some pieces were better than others, but I didn't really consider any of it shit.
Not really.
Hmm. Except that script I wrote for a company that was trying to get a television series for children going, in order to get sponsorship money from a rather wealthy church group. That script was shit - but that was deliberate. I thought the whole concept of children teaching an angel about Christianity was so incredibly dumb and so obviously a come-on purely to get some of that good old church money, that I subtly sabotaged that one. I had no belief in the religion or the fairy tales they espoused, and thought that the church group were completely brainless to even consider that vapid pitch in the first place, but I didn't like the idea of them being ripped off either. It would never be aired by any self-respecting broadcaster so what was the point? And a judicious word here and there in the wrong place in the script worked wonders. Words have power. It never even got into production. My conscience remained clear.
"What shit are you referring to?"
Sean was sitting on my sofa, drinking my beer and eating my snacks, and calling my work shit. Nice friend!
"I'm talking about that crap you write about husbands and wives cheating on each other. There's no fun in that! Why don't you write about something good - something with action and danger and sex in it? Maybe you could write a tale about a Special Forces group that do clandestine missions in the dead of night. That would be good!"
I found myself laughing, despite my irritation. Hey, best friends are allowed to annoy you without worrying about fallout.
"You have no idea how many of this type of story have Special Forces guys in them."
He grinned. "Seriously? Why don't you put some in yours then?"
"Because it's a cliché. C'mon, think about it. A guy gets cheated on, and then uses his super powers to get even? Deus ex Machina, dude. It's too easy."
"I don't speak French, you know that," Sean said pompously, pulling my chain.
"Yeah, you know what it means. The bad guy just happens to get hit by lightning or something equally unlikely - like the rain offing Bruce Willis in the Lovely Bones after he kills Saoirse Ronan. Or more likely, the poor cheated husband or wife just turns out to be Special Forces, but nobody knew. Or at least it wasn't mentioned until very late in the story."
"At least that would be cool!" enthused Sean. "Like, the bad guy is about to hump the wife and the husband shoots his dick off."
"Been there. Read it. Snipers are very popular."
"Yeah, shoot the tip of the guy's dick off from five miles away. So he wouldn't even know what happened. It's just ... gone."
"Exactly."
He went and got himself another beer. What can I say? My fridge was his fridge.
"Okay, so no super army guys. But it's still shit. So why do you write it? Especially after ... you know..."
Yeah, I knew - my wife being humped by another guy - got that tee-shirt as well.
Hell, so did Sean. Although he knew his wife was a slut right from the get-go. He loved his sluts, did Sean. Mine took me completely by surprise.
