What a dreadful idea!

Maybe it's just a way to have a midlife crisis that costs less than buying a sports car and a new mail-order bride, but I have decided to lock my hair, as in dreadlocks.  I'm also going to write about the experience . . . how it gets done, what it's like to have and maintain dreadlocks, and most importantly, how it shapes how people perceive and interact with me.

That last part - chronicling those perceptions - inspires the name of this project.  Dread Like Me is a play on Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin's story of how he became black in order to experience racial oppression in the southern United States.  I know that there's a good amount of negative stereotyping and perceptions about dreadlocks, mostly because I've shared a lot of those perceptions myself.  People who wear dreadlocks are dirty, aimless people who can't get a job, right?

Of course, I've also worked with attorneys who have locks, and it didn't keep them from commanding respect, so maybe it's more than just the wearing of the hair that forms those perceptions. The name is also rhymes with Dead Like Me, which is a bonus.  Maybe the creators of that show wanted to remind people of Black Like Me; I don't know, I just had the idea this moment.

I'm a writer whose greatest challenge is finding things to write about, so I'm hoping I can milk an ebook or maybe even a publishing deal out of this idea.  Can't hurt to try, hmm?