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Why I Love Being a Black Man Over 40
I make money writing memoirs and non-fiction stories.
Not enough to abandon my day job as a client services professional at the local hospital, but I make enough dollars to splurge on lunch from fast food joints about three times a month. Of course, money cannot be the sole reason for why I choose to write about my life. I actually love to create a piece of writing from scratch. I love the process involved with editing a story I’ve written, pulling apart the contents and then putting them back together like a puzzle. Writing can often be a therapeutic exercise, a respite from the disappointments and doldrums of everyday life. And if I happen to write an essay that is instrumental in changing the world in some small way, then so be it.
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Recently, I’d thought about expanding my oeuvre to include fiction writing, as science fiction and fantasy are my favorite genres. I’ve actually scribbled some ideas onto a notebook a few times before eventually coming to my senses. Because I don’t need to write an imaginary story to enrapture an audience. I am a large (6 feet 2 inches and 250 lbs), relatively young (age 43) black man living in the United States of America. My life, in so many ways, is much stranger than fiction.
In the stories I’m reading now — think comic books and graphic novels — there is often a…
