Booty in Chair

Scroll to the bottom for a fun picture book recommendation you may want in about 100 days, and keep reading for a little encouragement for wiggly kids and adults.

In this back-to-school season, parents and teachers and librarians and kids are going to need some discipline to bump out of the summer rut. I’m right there with them, coming off a summer with very little structure and drafting a new middle grade novel in a series that will come out fall of 2027. I’m facing down a deadline for book two and working through plot tangles. I know what I need to do. In the famous words of Jane Yolen, beloved children’s author of Owl Moon and over 400 other books, I need to remember three simple letters: BIC, which stand for “Butt In Chair.” I need to sit down and write.

When my middle son was young, flash cards were a real slog for him and for us. He needed discipline to keep at it. What did the “chair” part of BIC look like for us back then? A staircase.

Nate just couldn’t seem to keep the facts in his head, and drilling them over and over was painful. He lost focus. We lost patience. We came up with a game where he started at the top of the stairs, and each time he got a fact right, he got to come down a step. When he got one wrong, he went back up a step. When he got all the way to the bottom, he got some M&M’s. That little bit of sweetness was the carrot he needed to keep going. I’d hold up that baggie of candy and he’d be reminded that something good was on the other side of his suffering.

As so often happens, something in a book I’m reading seemed to speak to my struggles. Tish Harrison Warren, author of What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience, says of BIC, “It’s habits. It’s practices. It’s repetition. If one ever arrives at anything like flow, it is because of countless days, weeks, and years of ordinary disciplines that, in the moment anyway, seem frustrating, faltering, and like nothing significant is happening.”

I love when the words come easy, when the story just flows right out of me, but most of the time they don’t. If I want to get to that fun flow state Tish talks about, where I’m so immersed in my world and characters it becomes play, it’s as simple, and hard, as getting my butt in the chair and writing, day after day.

Ultimately, what gets us through those hard times is keeping our eye on the prize. For a kid, the prize may need to be a little more tangible than being able to flawlessly know what 8 plus 6 is. Maybe it’s M&M’s. And to be honest, I’ve been known to keep some chocolate on the desk, too. Whatever it takes to get the BIC, the work done, and the dream a little closer.

Speaking of BIC, this is my 101st Substack post, not that I’m counting, which is the way I work best. Not counting. As a writer I’m not big on making a word count quota every day. I’m big, like I said, on BIC. If I get myself there, my work and my play will happen. But when I noticed I’d not only hit but zoomed past the same benchmark kindergartners hit each year as they celebrate the first 100 days of school, the day Zero the Hero comes to call, I thought I’d throw a little confetti and say how glad I am that you’re around. Thanks for reading.

This is the same illustrator who did Stick and Stone which I include in this post about books that show kindness in action, and The Umbrella which I talk about in this post of books that exemplify grit. I love Tom Lichtenheld’s style. And the author, Joan Holub, has written over 200 books for kids. I bet she knows a little something about BIC!

• My daughter and I started taking tap dance lessons together and it’s a blast. It’s also connecting my brain to my feet in ways I haven’t done in a while, which is a little humbling.

• My granddaughter took her first timid wide-stance steps, such a marvel! She’ll be one on September 9th

• I got my fingers in some dirt and re-filled the two pots next to our front door after the previous plants withered while we were gone in Cali. It felt good to get something growing again.

  

  

  My name is Meredith Davis, and I’m an award winning writer of middle grade books, a former indie bookseller, founder of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Learn about my books, teaching resources and author visit information on my website (www.meredithldavis.com) Mother to three, Nana to two, I live with my husband and a crazy doodle in Austin, Texas.