Why is my writing chair all wonky?

My office chair has suddenly gone all wonky.

If I lean only slightly to one way, it wants to go further. It’s quite disconcerting, especially when I am concentrating on my latest literary masterpiece. It has the effect of throwing me not only off balance slightly, but it also takes my focus off my writing. Not good.

My wife insisted I buy a really good “writing chair” for my office when I retired from teaching nearly seven years ago. (Is it really? How time flies when one is busy writing.) So I bought this great chair and it has endured nearly ten thousand hours of me sitting here grinding out literally one and half million words (yes – I do keep such records).

Poor thing. It probably needs to retire gracefully. Trouble is, I feel I am just getting under way with this writing thing. My best words are still coming. And I don’t want to go searching for a replacement.

I’ve turned the chair unceremoniously upside down a few times trying to work out how to fix it. Mmmm – seems there is nothing to adjust, tighten, loosen, fix or correct. Ah – there is a tension knob – a few twists of it seems to have improved it somewhat.

Why is my writing all wonky?

Sadly, this also happens with the words we write. A poem or a story or parts of a novel are all “wonky”. They need very close inspection to see if something is wrong. Only when the “wonky bit” is fixed will the story or poem work properly. Sometimes you can’t see it yourself, so it’s good to have another set of eyes to have a look at it. A critiqing group can also give good feedback.

Good writing.