Why did Laurence Sterne begin writing Tristram Shandy?

Laurence Sterne began writing Tristram Shandy after his career prospects in the church were damaged by the controversy surrounding his 1759 satire, A Political Romance (also known as The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat).1

Following the forced burning of that work by embarrassed church officials, Sterne turned his attention to his literary talents. While he initially drafted a sharply satiric version of Tristram Shandy, the project coincided with a period of significant personal distress, including the deaths of his mother and uncle, as well as his wife’s mental health crisis. Under these difficult circumstances, Sterne softened the satire and shifted the focus toward the eccentricities of his characters and the complexities of human experience, describing the process as being written under the "greatest heaviness of heart".1