Alessandra Torre
My Chair
I have always been a horrible writer - just ask my physical therapist. The first question she asked me, after examining my wrenched spine and stiff neck, was "Where do you write?!"
The answer: everywhere, but mostly in my chair.
I have a desk, mind you. A really nice one. I found it at a thrift store in Tallahassee and immediately fell in love with it. It has moved with us five times now, to six different office locations, and I've probably written at it twice that much. I also have a super pretty office chair, one that is supposed to be good for my back and proper posture... blah blah blah. My brain resists, and when I'm not propped up in bed, laptop in place, or sitting in the backseat of a car, fingers typing away or outside in a chaise lounge - I'm in my chair.
Five years ago, we moved. Moving - for us - meant selling a home turn-key. Turn-key means that the new buyers get everything. Linens. Towels. Pillows. Silverware. Soap dispensers. Iron. Hairdryer. I keep the family photos and our clothes and any personal items - but everything else goes. Including (and especially) the furniture.
I think I hugged the chair before I left. At that point, my attachment to it was minor. I liked it, sure! It had been comfortable, definitely. But it was big, and we didn't really have a place for it in our new house, so I left it behind.
The obsessing started on my second week away. My replacement chair sucked. So did the adjustable bed frame that propped me into a sitting position. I finally relented to my desk and felt my creative muscles spasm in pain. I tried the Starbucks route, then the couch. The couch wasn't bad, but three weeks in, and my back locked up from the poor support. Around that time, my husband was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and we hit the road, driving six-hour stretches to and from Orlando, where his treatment was. My memories of the chair faded into the background as more important things took center stage.
Three months later, back home for a blissful two weeks, my husband pulled into our old condo complex. Glancing over, I asked him why we were here.
Ahhh... my chair. You don't know it, but I just smiled. I love my chair. It was a gift from a friend of ours and is this big leather monster with a matching ottoman. I can easily fit two dogs beside me and let the third lie at my feet. It holds at least two remotes somewhere inside it, enough crumbs to feed a small family of mice, and a permanent butt imprint from overuse. If I happen to fall asleep when writing (a sad and common occurrence), the padded arm makes an awesome pillow. I've written fifteen books and counting in this chair and I almost lost it forever.
"To pick up your chair." My husband, down forty pounds and with a chemo port bulging from his collar, grinned. "I called the new owners and bought it back."
I think I cried and I am NOT a crier. Unless, of course, emotional movies with pets reuniting with their owners or military parents are returning to their children. Then I gush up like a leaky faucet. But I cried at the realization that I would have my chair back. I needed that piece of normalcy, that hug of leather when I was in the middle of a difficult scene, that comfortable bed when I needed a quick nap.
An hour later, the chair was wedged into an office that was a little too small for it but I didn't care. My writing space was back.
Now, five years later, my husband is cancer-free, we moved twelve hours south to Key West, Florida - and my chair sits smack in the middle of our living room. I stick headphones on and it becomes my writing sanctuary. We're up to fifteen books together, her and I - and I have vowed to hold onto it until my final word is written.
It is Where I Write.
A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Alessandra Torre has written twenty-two novels, including three New York Times bestsellers.
Her first book, Blindfolded Innocence, was a breakout hit, rising to the top of the ebook charts on Amazon where it attracted the interest of major publishing houses and garnered Torre her first print deal with Harlequin HQN. Less than twelve months later, Torre signed a second six-figure print deal, this time with Redhook (Hachette) for the Deanna Madden series, an erotic suspense trilogy.
Torre has been featured in such publications as Elle and Elle UK, as well as guest-blogged for the Huffington Post and RT Book Reviews. She is also the Bedroom Blogger for Cosmopolitan.com. In 2017, her New York Times bestseller HOLLYWOOD DIRT, was released as a full-length film by PassionFlix. Torre’s novels have been translated in seventeen languages and are distributed in over thirty countries.
Torre is the creator of Alessandra Torre Ink - an authors community and online school with over 10,000 members. She is also the founder of INKERS CON, an annual authors conference. A self-publishing advocate, Alessandra speaks frequently to universities, conventions and author groups.
From her home in Key West, Florida, she devotes several hours each day to various writing projects and interacting with her fans on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. When not battling her husband at Scrabble, she chases her pet chickens, three dogs, and shoos away iguanas.