Seduce a Writer in 6 Simple Steps

By Debra Moffitt

It’s easier than you think to romance a writer. A writer wants what any intimate partner wants, with just a few edits. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Send a saucy text.

Invite your writer to an unforgettable night in a text that leaves everything to the imagination. She’ll suspend belief. She’s been doing it all week! But before sending, check for grammatical and spelling errors like you’re wooing Ben Dreyer or Mary Norris.

2. Remove distractions.

Ship the kids to grandma’s. Clean up the house and clear the clutter — except for the writer’s clutter. That flotsam and jetsam (squibs of paper, exhausted notebooks, folded-over news clippings and stacks of books) must remain undisturbed in its mystical order. Do not return the writer’s books to the library.

3. Set the mood.

Draw the bath, lower the lights, set the candles ablaze. Let the wine breathe. Build a world where she can unspool her nagging, writerly thoughts. (Would this how-to be better in first person? Does “saucy” really do the job above?) Shhhh. Tell her to let it all go, let the words disappear, hide the whole alphabet under the bed, just for tonight.

4.Overwhelm the senses.

Look your best. Set her ablaze by flooding the bedroom with the sultry scent of warm vanilla and sensuous jasmine. Teasing the writer’s olfactory nodes, hotwired to the limbic system, sets up the rising action. Drop a chocolate-covered strawberry on her tongue. Avoid madeleines. Read her a poem, but not by anyone who underwhelmed her at a writer’s conference or whose oeuvre eluded her in college or whose “distilled, lyrical genius” makes her peevish with envy.

5. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Any seduction how-to will tell you to ask your partner what she wants. But YOU can kick it up a notch by asking and then really listening. Give her a close read on this one. Do it right and you’re guaranteed a mention in tomorrow’s daily journaling exercise.

6. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Remember, she likes her endings both inevitable and surprising. Pause to savor the climactic moment as it approaches. You built the suspense – and pushed your love coaster all the way up the hill. Before the two of you tip the car over the edge together, go ahead and do that thing you know she really wants.

Leave.

Just go. Exit the room and depart the home quickly and quietly. What she really wants is to get some writing done. Return in approximately six hours. Bring food and your appetite for promising first drafts.

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Debra Moffitt is a Delaware-based writer whose essays have appeared in Slate, The Washington Post, Farmer-ish and Garden Rant. She authored a middle grade book series about puberty called The Pink Locker Society (St. Martin’s). Find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Happiest_Writer .