'Not the Head But the Seat'

My late friend David Myers  taught me the useful German and Yiddish word imported into English, sitzfleisch. The etymology is straightforward: sitzen (“to sit”) + Fleisch (“flesh”). In other words, what we sit on -- the buttocks, ass or derriere. Metaphorically, the OED tells us, it came to mean “the ability to persist in an activity which requires sitting for a long period of time; endurance, persistence.” The dictionary supplies citations from D.H. Lawrence (unexpectedly) and S.J. Perelman (no surprise). 

Among a writer’s essential qualities is perseverance, staying seated at the keyboard until the work at hand is finished. Inspiration is fine but execution is everything. I’ve just encountered the idea again in How to Write Like Chekhov (Da Capo, 2008), an anthology of Chekhov selections edited by Piero Brunello and Lena Lenček, with translations from the Russian by the latter. As an epigraph they use a line by the Slovene writer Rado Lenček (1921-2005), the co-editor’s father: “In writing, it is not the head but the seat that gets the job done.”  That’s the lesson I learned working as a newspaper reporter for a quarter-century. Deadlines are ironclad, non-negotiable. Editors don’t debate and won’t listen to excuses. You sit and write, period.

 

The editors rely heavily on Chekhov’s letters, especially those written during his 1890 journey to Siberia, while investigating the penal colony and writing the resulting book, Sakhalin Island (1891-93), his nonfiction masterpiece. Lena Lenček in her introduction writes:

 

“Chekhov turned out to be a giant among writers: lapidary, subtle, generous, infectious, and respectful of his readers in ways that the other Russians with better PR could not even imagine. He published 568 stories in a lifetime that spanned a total of 44 years. He corresponded with all the major and minor writers, critics, and artists of his time; mentored dozens of aspiring authors; and left a legacy that included copious advice on the art of writing—and living—well.”