6 TRUE STORIES, WELL TOLD.TRUE STORIES, WELL TOLD.
setting the mood
When I was younger, I wrote at my desk, a gracious Mexican affair
bought in a first-sight passion. The seat was hardwood, ambitious. Many
an essay has this desk to thank for its existence, as does my son; it’s where
I measured out my fertility drugs into a hopeful series of syringes, before
resting my weight on its kindly bulk to stick myself—a useful metaphor,
perhaps, for the writing life. These days, I write most often with legs
stretched out atop the indulgently accommodating mattress my husband
and I bought after a lengthy battle with mold spores and marauding dust
mites, those naughty squatters drawn to our ancient pocket-springs by
the relics of connubial activity (skin, sweat, etc.) and the feeding of our
resultant offspring (breast milk, Cheerios mush, drool).^1 Which tells
you most of what you need to know about the current state of my erotic
and creative life. The bed offers prolonged support, along with a more
complex and satisfying perspective. Semi-prone, I can look out, over my
laptop, to the outrageous display of azaleas and other blowsy Southern
efflorescence outside the window, shaming me with the perennial “come
hither” morphology of the flowers, and thence up into the leafy, austral1 The seeds of the grotesque were ever planted in a damp bed, an Eden.NICOLA WALDRON is a graduate
of Cambridge and the Bennington
Writing Seminars. Her work has been
published in Post Road Magazine,
Los Angeles Review of Books,
Assay, and Agni, among others.
She currently teaches writing at the
University of South Carolina and is
working on an essay collection.A Kink in the Tale:
On Libido and the Writing Practice
Can the making of creative nonfiction be considered an erotic art? NICOLA
WALDRON investigates how to go deep in the cause of more intimate connection
with your work and your readers.