Everything Starts with the Foot

Writer: Cortney Donelson

Our feet take us where we’re going.

I used to be a physical therapist. I “retired” at age thirty-something and set out on career number two, then three. With career number four, I’ve settled into what I believe is my calling: writing and editing.

In the world of physical therapy, we had a saying: “Everything starts with the foot,” meaning, many orthopedic calamities are the byproducts of something going on at the level of our feet. Our feet lead the way for our whole bodies. If a patient complains of knee pain, look at the foot. How does it strike the ground, and what forces are affecting the knee? If a patient needs hip surgery, first look at the foot. Otherwise, the surgery may not help. If a patient struggles with low back pain, first look at the . . . yep, the foot.

As a young kid, before a high school English teacher told me I wasn’t a writer and should pursue the sciences, and certainly well before PT school, I dreamed of writing a novel. If you had asked me what the perfect career was, I’d have said “a writer, holed up in a cozy chair in a room full of books, with a warm cup of anything but coffee.” (I never learned to appreciate any kind of roast.)

For decades, I tried to start a story. I scribbled a few lines on a piece of notebook paper during math class. Later, I typed a paragraph or two on the first word processor my roommate had in college. Later still, I outlined a few characters or a rough storyline in my late twenties, only to junk my WIP shortly after.

When the pandemic closed the world, my family played hours of MONOPOLY. (Is there any shorter way to do it?) Between heated “rounds” of buying and selling, the board game sat on the white modern table next to our scaling tiled fireplace in our family room. In boredom, I stared at the board. Then I stared some more. Mr. Monopoly came into perspective. The colors and the street names. The jail and the free parking spot. And then a story emerged.

I wanted this time to be different. I didn’t want to start writing a manuscript, only to drag the document to the trash icon a few days later. Longing to prove my English teacher wrong, I did what I had been trained to do. I started with the foot, the last body part named in the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song.

I wrote the ending first.

The ending made me giddy, and a smile stretched across my lower face. I very nearly rubbed my hands together as if involved in a sinister plot—because I was. This was going to be an epic tale, I encouraged myself. My cheeks hurt from all that smiling. “This time,” I said, “will be different.”

Starting with the end fueled my fire to write, to labor, crafting characters as I worked backward to get them to that most perfect ending.

Some writers say you should outline. Others use sticky notes of various neon tints, plastered on a whiteboard or wall. Me? I wrote an ending that made me want to rub my hands together and cackle. I still did not know what genre my book fell into, but I knew where my characters were going. And it worked.

After my draft, it took my first beta reader to tell me I had written a mystery. That insight blew me away. I had not intended to write a mystery. But she was correct. It was nearly all there: the dead body. The clues. The questions.

I honed the mystery pieces of the puzzle and marveled at the outcome. I had done it. My teacher was wrong. I had led with the foot, the ending, and my head exploded with the realization: I had completed the two-year adventure and written a full novel. A good novel.

If you’re struggling with writing your book, my message to you comes not from my ghostwriting and editing gig, but from the years I wore a white lab coat. Ignore the naysayers, the rules, and the advice. Skip the science classes, find your favorite mug, fill it with a hot beverage, kick back in your coziest chair, and write the ending.

Sometimes, everything starts with the foot.

Cortney Donelson is the founder and principal writer at vocem, LLC, a writing business that offers ghostwriting and editing services. She is also the associate publisher of Fiction for Morgan James Publishing. Though she’s written over a dozen books, she can call three her own: a memoir, titled Clay Jar, Cracked: When We’re Broken But Not Shattered; a faith-based book, The Outlier’s Choice: Why Living an Uncomfortable Life is Worth It, and her debut novel, The Billionaire’s List. Cortney has called the Charlotte area home for twenty-five years. She loves hiking and paddle boarding with her husband and teenage kids.

Website: Cortney Donelson