Thanks for the compliment I have my reservations about writing an autobiography, as touched on elsewhere. To elaborate, I'm concerned about the repercussions, both to me and to whom I might write about, of having details of my private life in print. When I said as much to the person who originally floated this idea to me (a job coach I had when working in Exeter) she remarked that it was unusual for someone on the spectrum to display so much concern for the consequences of my actions. (Come off it, we're not all that nasty!)
It has been suggested that I could change people's names, but I don't think that would be completely effective. There's a scene in one of Agatha Christie's novels - possibly The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but don't quote me on that - in which Hercule Poirot remarks that in his experience it is unusual for people to come up with fake names without in some way giving an indication of the person they're really thinking of. In this circumstance one of the suspects has claimed to have seen Mrs Debenham in the library when it was actually Mrs Freebody: Poirot sees through the lie straightaway because Debenhams & Freebody is the name of a well-known London department store (the forerunner of the present-day Debenhams chain).
OTOH I don't feel that I've had enough life experience to write novels, certainly not adult novels which tend to focus on relationships, and I don't feel sufficient rapport for children to write for them. Perhaps that will change as my nephew gets older.
Somebody Somewhere had some interesting bits but was a bit disjointed, while Like Colour to the Blind could have done with a lot more copy-editing. There is far too much description of mundane details (including TV commercials and flatulence, for crying out loud!), intermingled with stuff about Donna obssessing over her "defences" and wanting to check everything. I couldn't help thinking that if her time had been taken up with a regular 9-17 job or the hunt for one (like us lesser mortals) she'd have had far less occasion for all that. Another thing that strikes me as odd is that DW is an artist, yet in all her account of her time living in Essex she apparently never bothered to visit the countryside which had inspired John Constable. Also, despite her being sufficiently interested in German culture (one assumes) to have learnt the language fluently and have spent some time in Germany (this according to Somebody Somewhere), none of the groundbreaking changes taking place in Germany or post-Communist Europe generally at the time evidently made much of an impression on her.
I know it's none of my business how people chose to spend their lives, but I can't help thinking that if I were privileged enough to have an expenses-paid sabbatical in Australia I'd hope to do far more with my time then loaf around at home watching TV commercials.
