I am currently in the process of writing my memoirs. The title above is just a working title at this point. Please note that there is a question mark at the title’s end ... which indicates that I'm not prepared to be so hard on myself! Maybe, I had more brains than luck.

​

The motivation for recounting my life story probably began just before my diagnosis for cancer in August 2025. Even when I didn't know exactly what was wrong, I was feeling vulnerable. In retrospect, I was incredibly lucky. My wife reflected that I had a cakewalk through cancer. A cancerous growth in my bladder was removed before the cancer had penetrated into the muscle. I had to endure one minor surgery, had a few uncomfortable procedures, but no chemotherapy or radiation to date and the current prognosis is good. I still remain aware, however, that things could change and that I'm not out of the woods yet.

​

Meanwhile I have been reading excerpts from this work to my Creative Writing Group on a weekly basis for almost a year... and that prognosis is definitely good! Almost every Wednesday, I read a one-thousand-word excerpt of my writing. I can count on the honesty of the members of the group because they were not shy in their negative criticism of my latest published book ‘Challenger Confidential’.

 

To reassure potential readers, I modified the text of 'Challenger' but after the writing group's reaction to that book, the reaction to ‘More Luck than Brains?’ was gratifying.

​

“You’ve found your voice. I knew you could” was one comment. While reading another chapter, another member opined, “I truly want to know more about that character. You could expand that chapter into a short story.”

 

In general, the continuous complaint over ‘Challenger Confidential’ was that members of the group found it too technical.

​

“Where are the descriptions of the characters?” was a frequent observation. A variation on that theme was “Where are the descriptions of the settings in the book?”

“Why isn’t there more dialogue between the characters?” was also frequently heard.

​

The negative reception of my work was particularly distressing for two reasons. For one, "Challenger Confidential" was a complex writing task. I was constantly researching technical details online. I also spent hours reading the interview transcripts from NASA’s Oral History Project which are also available online at the NASA website.

​

The second reason was that at the same time I was experiencing bladder cancer symptoms even before the diagnosis. I often had an uncontrollable urge to urinate and was passing blood in my urine whenever I exerted myself. I was scared, and everything I did seemed to be going wrong while I waded through the bureaucracy of the medical system.

​

I began my autobiography about a month before my surgery to remove the mass from my bladder. As I wrote earlier, the response of the Creative Writing Group to my work was immediately gratifying. People were charmed. Because my autobiography was in the first person, I stopped receiving criticism about not having enough dialogue. And people told me that they liked my voice in this work.

 

The other positive aspect of this book is that it has been the easiest writing that I have ever done. There is very little research. Sitting down to write is like a trip through memory lane. I find that I’ve been savouring chapters that I have written, reading them over multiple times and enjoying the new memories that emerge with each reading.

​

Yet another interesting result of writing my memoirs is that I have been able to analyze events in my life which happened decades in the past from a more mature viewpoint. Things that seemed really stressful when they occurred, now seem trivial in the fullness of time.

​

In closing, I have discovered that my autobiography has been surprisingly therapeutic. As my health improved, my confidence about my writing increased as well. Furthermore, my narrative was reinforced by positive comments from the Creative Writing Group.

 

My efforts of documenting my life have allowed me to come to the conclusion that I have led a good life. If my bout with cancer had turned out to be more serious, writing my own story would have allowed me to die knowing that I had led a meaningful existence. However, the question still remains: more luck than brains … or more brains than luck.