Welcome to my blog

There are many out there but this one is mine.

And so the question becomes, why "The Writer in Black." First, I mostly plan to post about writing here and things that tie into writing and I tend to wear black a lot so. . . .

Some years back I picked up a black shirt and pants and liked they way they looked on me, however, friends told me that if I wanted to be attractive to young women I needed to dress in brighter colors.  Being irredeemably heterosexual and a young man with a fully functioning set of hormones this was an important consideration and, so, I put aside what I liked and went with what others told me I "ought" to wear in the hopes that I would have more success getting dates with the ladies.

It didn't work.

Still, over the years I did manage to marry (an event that continues to amaze me to this day) and so the pressure of "winning" in the dating game was off but by that time the "wear bright colors" advice had stuck so thoroughly that I never even considered switching.

So the years passed until someone introduced me to music of styles of which I had not previously been aware, groups like the Cruxshadows, Nightwish, Within Tempation and the like.  I really liked that music and went looking for more.  One of the results was that I was introduced to Gothic subculture which included, among other things, a lot of people who wear predominantly black and dark colors.

On seeing that, I thought, "you know, that looks pretty good" and I started wearing darker clothes of my own.  And wonder of wonders people started saying things like "that's a good look on you."  Things progressed with growing my hair out and tying it back and later dying it, then adding the Cowboy Hat and Western style shirts.  Some people, of course, did not appreciate my new look but I decided that I really didn't care.  I liked it and that's really all that mattered.

Oh, my wife was a bit hesitant at first but it wasn't long before she was spontaneously complementing my look.

Once my look "matured" into its more or less final form I noticed something.  When I was a child, there was a TV show that my family watched avidly:  Have Gun, Will Travel.  In a fit of nostalgia, I found the videos of the first season and watched them (and found that it was as good as I remembered--Yes, Hollywood, you can tell a good dramatic story in a half hour format).  The series featured Richard Boone as Paladin, "The Man in Black" (a reversal of the common stereotypes of the time where the "good guys" wear light colors and, often white hats).  My own look had moved very much in the same direction and so I started thinking of myself mentally as "the scientist in black" or "the writer in black."

And that brings us to where we are now.