The Black Book – My Version

Seeing the professional quality of my niece’s Black Book resurrected the idea for me to write my own story. It was fun to read my parent’s story again and see the new photos as well. And I was even more convinced that our story had to be written. But time and other distractions got in the way and so the idea was pushed to the back of my mind.

Sometime around the time my niece published her version of the Black Book, I learned that my daughter had started a blog. I had never read a blog before so was unfamiliar with the concept. I began to read my daughter’s almost daily posts and felt a real connection to her even though she lived almost 2,000 miles away. It was a real treat to read her eloquent words—for unlike me, she is a literary scholar—and get a glance into her thoughts and feelings through her prose and photos.

These stories weren’t for the most part of significant events, but rather just everyday musings, thoughts that if not written down somewhere would likely be lost. I thought what a great way to capture these elusive reflections for posterity.

Not long afterwards, my wife started her own creative blog and I began to read hers as well. My wife is very creative and I highly encouraged her along the way. And thanks to our son-in-law’s help, she overcame the technical aspects of launching a blog.

Often I would comment to her after reading her latest post that I could never have written that—my own telling would have been just the facts without the flavor or emotions—the old ad image of trying to sell the steak sans the sizzle.

But then she invited me to be a guest writer on her blog. I thought a while about what I would want to write on and in the end decided to write on my love of calendars.

Turns out I had a lot to say as the post was so long, it had to be split into two separate postings.

The feedback I got was tremendous and highly encouraging. I also found it personally very rewarding to go onto the Internet and find something I had written, something that anyone could find through a search engine. Thanks to my wife’s invitation, I began to think what it would be like to start my own blog.

My first step was to jot down some potential ideas that I would want to blog about. I came up with a list of about 25 topics and so convinced myself that I had enough to get started. I wrote a couple of drafts and had my wife proofread them.

My next step was to come up with a blog title. Having witnessed the creativity that my daughter and wife had expressed on their blogs, I decided that I too wanted to explore my own creativity. But I wanted my title to not only reflect this but also identify me for what I was professionally and so chose the title “OneCreativeScientist.com.”

Thanks again to our technically talented son-in-law, he talked me through the process of obtaining a domain name and then linking that to my WordPress account. My first attempt at publishing failed but even though being extremely busy at the time, my son-in-law helped me troubleshoot and correct the problem from almost 2,000 miles away. My introductory post published on 09 Feb 2013.

As I wrote these early posts and added new topics to my list as they came to me, I realized that I was telling the stories that I had wanted to write in my version of “the Black Book.”

Recently, I came across that old WORD file—appropriately named “David’s Story”—on an old computer. As I read the words, I recognized that thankfully my writing skills had in fact improved over the ensuing years. But what I realized the most was that except for one of those stories I had included in that first chapter so long ago, I have written about each in this blog. Whether consciously or subconsciously when I first started out, this blog has become “My Black Book.”

Interestingly, it is not structured like I originally envisioned my book would be—in chronological order. But nonetheless, it tells my story and my interactions with all those I love. And along the way, it has helped me to discover some things about myself.

Whether or not I ever decide to convert this blog into a book one day, it will continue to exist as my digital, virtual “Black Book.” I hope to continue to publish more stories both from memories as well as new experiences. Thanks for reading and especially thanks for all of your encouraging comments!