An Interrupted Life

During the past year I’ve been working on an autobiography. I’m doing it mainly for the sake of my descendants who, like most young people, don’t think of asking questions until it’s too late, partly because they’re too busy, partly for fear of being bored, but also I think for fear of finding it rather embarrassing.

However, being a writer by profession, I can’t do this job without thinking of it as a book, and books need readers. Unfortunately, after a good start the work has slowed up significantly and I am not at all sure when it might be finished. So I thought, well, I have thirty thousand words that various people have pronounced good, so why not cast my bread upon the waters, follow the example of writers more famous than me, and serialise it in ten weekly parts leading up to Christmas. By then perhaps I will have found the courage to keep going.

Ted Simon (October 2019)