Doctor’s orders placed the seat of
my pants on the seat of my desk chair.
I began writing about my injury. My
first essay was about how others
noticed my leg brace, publicly making
intrusive comments: “I hope you’re not
trying that on for size!”
Essay Two stemmed from initially
refusing a friend’s offer to push me in a
wheelchair so that I could attend a
museum exhibit. I didn’t want to be
viewed as an old lady. But why did I
resist experiencing the perspective a
disabled person experienced every
day? I wrote about facing obstacles and
dangers I’d never feared before: stairs,
broken elevators, rainstorms, and lit-
eral bumps in the road.
My word productivity doubled.
Except for restroom visits, showers,
and eight hours of sleep a night, I was
securely ensconced in my desk chair.
When John McPhee was a young
writer, discouraged that Knopf rejected
his novel, he turned to writing plays.
“Each morning I would thread my
bathrobe sash through the spokes of
the chair and tie myself in,” he said in
an interview in the New York Times,
claiming it was the only way he could
work. The result: He sold three plays.
We don’t need to tie ourselves to our
desk chairs, literally or figuratively to
produce. What’s important to remem-
ber is that ideas emerge from the writ-
ing process – not the other way around.
Throughout my writing career,
when I occasionally felt less of an urge
to write, I learned to accept this
“pause” as a temporary waning of the
creative process. Everyone needed
breaks. I’d see a movie. Explore a new
part of town I’d never been to before.
Go to the gym.
Much has been discussed and
debated about writer’s block. In a clas-
sic Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy sits atop
his doghouse with a typewriter, while
Linus walks away saying, “Good luck
with the second sentence.”
Many writers, from Hemingway to
Anne Lamott, have discussed how they
forged past “shitty first drafts.” The
magic and thrill of revision is that
shitty first drafts evolve into good, bet-
ter, best writing. We have to be patient.
And keep writing.
“The best way for breaking up a
writer’s block is to write a lot,” said nov-
elist and writing teacher John Gardner.
And if you still find yourself stuck,
follow Charles Bukowski’s advice:
“Writing about a writer’s block is better
than not writing at all.”
Writing about my foot injury is
much better than not writing at all. I
plan to maintain my increased disci-
pline that flourished when my poste-
rior was sequestered in my chair. I will
see the world with new eyes, translat-
ing that fresh vision into more essays. I
may not be tall enough to write atop
the refrigerator, but my desk chair is
the perfect height.
—Candy Schulman is an award-winning writer
whose essays have appeared in the New York
Times, the Washington Post, New York Magazine,
Longreads, Next Avenue, AARP, and others,
including anthologies. She is a creative writing
professor at The New School in Greenwich Village.writermag.com • The Writer | 5“Writing’s just as natural to me as getting up
and cooking breakfast.” —Dolly Parton