Nora Roberts: "Ass in the Chair"

"Ass in the chair": This is the dictum by which author Nora Roberts has succeeded in cranking out 182 novels (and selling more than eight million books in 2008, according to the article in The New Yorker, June 22, 2009). “She scoffs at the notion of inspiration, divine or otherwise,” and writes for six to eight hours a day.

Wow. You can’t argue with advice that so obviously brings results (to the tune of sixty-million dollars a year gross, in fact). What advice, I wonder, would she give to an eleven-year-old boy who has taken the “ass in the chair” paradigm to heart, but only to watch way too much TV and play video games? How to get him out of the chair?

I take much of the blame for Cosmo’s sluggification. After all, I chose to order satellite for my new house, knowing full well that it offers Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. In fact, that was pretty much the reason for getting it, duh. Myself, I could live quite well without a TV. (Except that I’d want to watch The Simpsons seasons on DVD occasionally....)

Just to add another unhealthy and gratuitous layer of frosting (because we know that kids love to lick the frosting off the cupcake and immediately seek out another sweet, unclaimed victim), I bought a recliner. A high-leg recliner, which to me looks more like a normal armchair than the puffy swivel design, but, nonetheless, a recliner. LA-Z-BOY. No doubt the chair—which is so lazy that it’s indifferent to correct spelling—is named after the consumer, but it’s just as plausible that the name itself induces the phenomenon of la-z-ness.

This disinclination for activity has become a bone of contention between Cosmo and his dad, who despairs that C is on the path to becoming a fat and lazy adult incapable of finding or creating something of interest. I certainly don’t want that; neither does Cosmo. But nagging him about reading books (besides the graphic novels he’s already memorized), getting exercise, or finding a hobby, results only in frustration (as most nagging must). Suggestions meet with stubborn resistance.

How to make him responsible? Creative? Interested in stuff? Inspired, even?

Nora? Little help?

As of this writing—I don’t have a clue. But to be honest, I’m not stressing too much. As long as he laughs at SpongeBob, wants to share something from his videogame with me, plays with his dog and friends, or quotes The Simpsons verbatim and at length, he seems happy. And I get to spend time with him. (Okay, maybe it's not quality time—but it is at least quantity time, and that counts for a lot.) I may not know numbers like Nora, but I do know that eleven years old turns to twelve turns to twenty, in a very short time.