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"THE future writer" -- to quote Malcolm Cowley, incomparable critic of writers' works -- "will have been a great reader, with his nose always in a book. He will have been a lonely child, forced to depend upon his inner resources for entertainment, one of which is the habit of carrying on conversations with imaginary playmates; those conversations are the first drafts of his future works. Having come of age, he goes on writing because he has been nominated and elected, so to speak, to that particular office. We can trace these circumstances -- the early intensive reading, the time of loneliness, the public approval -- in the career of almost every writer whose life has been placed on record."

Well and good! I think most of us would agree personally with this analysis of writers -- past, present, future. But -- the suddenly paralyzed quite often proves himself (or herself) to be a different breed of animal. He is suddenly plunged into a deep mental metamorphosis, the catalyst for which is the combination of forced immobility and perpetual suffering. He learns patience and perseverance in a mere overnight class, a study that usually takes up the better part of a lifetime. . .if these virtues are ever to be had. He matures at high velocity, with a violent surge of new insights and increased drive and necessity for understanding. Add to this the fact that writing is often a late-flowering thing, or the desire to write at least, and you have a potential writer or painter in every quad. It is common knowledge that the artist in him often begins to emerge only after he has been stricken; for the first time in his life he has the time to seek out some means of self-expression.