“We’re starting a conversation with writers about commitment,” announces Anni Kamola, fellow writing coach and executive assistant for The Narrative Project.
“Here’s a blog topic for you,” she says to me. “Tell them all about your sexy writer’s butt—how sexy it looks sitting in your sexy chair.”
Um. Okay.
Anni is known for her quirky sense of humour. But I can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s not kidding. She really wants me to write about it—my sexy butt.
Ha!
I think a bit before I’m on to Anni. She’s not asking me to literally wax on about my superior posterior—thank goodness—or confess that it’s grown wider and flatter ever since I started putting in serious writing time, how sad or how droopy since Covid hit like a meteor shower and blasted my exercise program to bits.
Any bodacious bragging at this point would be the butt end of a joke.
No. What Anni is trying to say is that “sexy” is so much more than just physical appeal. She has a point. Sexy can be so much more. It’s really about what you do with what you’ve got.
For instance, as anyone who’s ever had a super-sexy conversation with an average-looking man or woman knows—the gift of the gab is irresistible. Someone who spins a good story can cause a heart to pitter-patter without a single brush of bare skin.
As any writer knows, a heady whiff of originality from someone else can be an invitation into the sublime.
Viewed from this angle, who cares, ultimately, what my butt looks like? When it’s smooshed up against this chair day and night—a backless, red, ergo-friendly saddle chair to be precise—even the chair can’t see my butt. From a writer’s perspective, the main idea is that my butt has arrived. It’s at one with the chair. I have read dozens of books on the art of writing, and the one thing every author, literary or bestselling (including the one-of-a-kind Anne Lamott) agrees on is this: If you want to write and actually produce something worth publishing, get your butt in the chair.
If you want to declare yourself something as sexy as a writer—still a great calling card at any Zoom cocktail party—get your butt in the chair.
Now. Finally. I get it. I am writing these words. And. My butt. Is. In. The Chair.
I write; therefore, I am sexy. My butt stays loyal to the chair; therefore, my butt is sexy. My chair is comfortable enough to keep me there. My chair is now a sexy chair.
Nothing, no piece of advice has ever been truer. I’ve tried committing to writing for years now and the one thing that’s made all the difference?
Keeping my sexy butt in this sexy chair.
Thanks to this basic principle of commitment, I produced the 70,000-word draft manuscript of my memoir at the start of summer. I printed it off and pulled its inky pages right up to my nose. I breathed it in.
The scent of my own blood, sweat, and tears turned out to be one of the sexiest smells of my life—no ifs, ands, or, er, buts.
You were right, Anni: chair-bound butts are sexy butts.
My own advice to writers: Get a sexy chair to match that sexy butt of yours, you sexy writer you.
