Jack Black (1871-1932) was a homeless petty criminal, drifter, who specialised in burglary, yet also had a brief stint as a writer. It is his story - and many like his - which help explain where all our greatest writing inspirations end up and how the best of our literary world is all around us and undervalued.

 Originally born in BC, Canada, he was raised from infancy in Maysville and Kansas City. His real name was never confirmed yet in his autobiography he is mentioned as Jack by his father, so he probably was called John, but there was no actual confirmation. An article in the local news of 1904 names him as Jack Black, but he was also named in 1912 as Thomas Callaghan, and there are other names he was known as, or called himself, but he is remembered as Jack Black.

  Jack went to prison several times; a side-effect of being a petty criminality. He spent 15 years of his thirty years as a career criminal in prison and yet he wrote his book as a forewarning to anyone thinking of being a criminal; attempting to help others from the path of wrongdoing. It was while in prison for the last time that he contacted a man - Fremont Older - who turned out to be a wealthy benefactor for his first and only writing success. In fact, Fremont was more of a role model, having made his own way in life whit his own hard-luck story to tell. Jack went on to work for Older's newspaper when he got out from prison and wrote his autobiography while he did so. The book centres around Jack's life on the road; from freight-hopping hobo, opportunistic theft, safe-cracking and addictions that had to be fed. The book is funny, dark, enlightening and saddening all in one. The time period is from the late 1880's to the early 1900', offering an interesting perspective of a dramatically changing America in the turn of the 20th century.  

 From freight-hopping hobo, theft, safe-cracking and addictions that had to be fed, the story is funny, enlightening and saddening all in one. Jack struggled with the process of writing, due in most part to his drug addiction, but that masks the underlying causes, lack of self-control. jack couldn't concentrate for long periods at a time, was often depressed and suffered crippling periods of procrastination and self-sabotage. Many of Jack Black's struggles were shared with many other potential writers, who don't get a lucky break, didn't have the support or education of writers with more opportunity and in some cases, less ability,  

 This is not a hard luck story, just an acknowledgement that there are many more writers, poets, artists and creative minds that we will rarely hear of. But it's also a point that most writers only have so much to say and once it has been said, they all struggle with depression and a lack of self-worth. Indeed, when Jack finally published his autobiography - 'you can't win' - in 1926 with Macmillan press, describing his life on the road as a career criminal, he had little else to write about. The adage that you should write what you know about is true, but it is often all you can write about, unless you're a professional writer, as most of us will lack the self-discipline needed to keep readers engaged, page-to-page, as it were.

  One of those that was heavily influenced Jack Black's life philosophy was the beat generation writer William S Burroughs, who wrote the following forward for the year 2000 edition of the novel:

"I first read You Can't Win in 1926, in an edition bound in red cardboard. Stultified and confined by middle-class St. Louis mores, I was fascinated by this glimpse of an underworld of seedy rooming houses, pool parlours, cat houses and opium dens, of bull pens and cat burglars and hobo jungles. I learned about the Johnson Family of good bums and thieves, with a code of conduct that made more sense to me than the arbitrary, hypocritical rules that were taken for granted as being 'right' by my peers."

 But the praise Jack received was the praise of entitled elites, who romanticised the life Jack lived while roaming the roads, as thought it was a life-choice and a romantic refusal of modern madness that life appears to be when we have the choice. But Jack had no choice; his misery was his life and all he had to write about.

 After the book was published, a play was attempted but flopped, yet Jack did a lot of work, giving regular seminars on the poor choices he'd made a why others should avoid a life of crime. Yet, he never quit his own addictions and his own depression eventually over-came him. In 1932 it is generally believed Jack committed suicide by drowning. In his book he had often described his fragile state of mind as "being ready for the river" as he put it. Indeed, he did seem to do exactly what he said he would and rowed out into the New York Harbour, where - after he tied weights to his legs - he slipped off the side of the boat into the freezing depths of the sea and was pulled down into his death.

 I have often heard it said that everyone has a story to tell, and I think it's true. What happens when they have said all they have to say? What do they do when they have written their book? What if all they had to live for was writing that one book? That's when they usually get depressed or move on to enjoy the rest of their life. Most do move on, but, overwhelmed by the lack of purpose in their life, some stay depressed and can never move on. Jack was not the first writer to find success to be far more challenging than the failure they had lived most of their life with.