I am not sure when I began to make up stories. I assume it must have been soon after I had acquired basic competence in the use of language. But I may be wrong about that. After all, stories take shape in the mind and imagination and my first stories, therefore, may have been entirely composed of images. In fact they may well have been dreams or waking fantasies, just wishes and fears incoherently expressed. I have only one memory of a story like that. And it happened so long ago that the best I can truthfully say is that it may be only the memory of a memory

I had been installed by my parents in a baby chair. The old fashioned kind of contraption that worked like the stocks holding you prisoner by virtue of a collapsible table sticking into your midriff and your legs hanging out beneath it. It was night and the curtains had been left open. A huge orange ball appeared in the sky out of nowhere. I had no idea what it was but I felt overwhelmed by the malevolence of its presence and began to squirm and cry. I wanted to get away from it. My parents, having unsuccessfully tried to comfort me, eventually hit on a neat plan. They transported the chair into the kitchen, closed the door and left me to my own devices. I could still clearly see the orange ball through the window and in solitary confinement it appeared even more menacing than before. It was coming to get me and I had no way to escape!