Prompt #117: Desire
Only trouble is interesting...this goes for writing sex and desire as well!
Hi Friend,
Last time, I sent out some advice on how to write sex well, whether you’re working on fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. You can find that post here in case you missed it. This time, we’ll be writing about sex and desire that’s more complicated, whether that’s unrequited, dangerous, or forbidden. I often tell my writing students that only trouble is interesting, and the most interesting desire is not exactly straightforward.
I hope these writing prompts have inspired you and your writing, but I also hope you’re starting to see that there are writing prompts everywhere. Recently, I saw a call for essay submissions, and within that call was a prompt (this is often the case, so have a look at submission calls).
The call asked for short essays that started with a time of day in a certain place followed by a description, so the format of the first sentence would be this: A SPECIFIC TIME in A PLACE is DESCRIPTION. What a great writing prompt!
So I got to work, and I ended up writing about an experience I had a very long time ago in Mexico, which was also about adulterous desire, which of course is a form of forbidden desire. Here’s what I came up with:
Dusk in Cuernavaca is drenched in humidity and longing. I am dancing in a line on an orange stucco balcony overlooking passing taxis speaking with shrill horns, red-blazed flowering trees, tangled power lines buzzing with currents. As instructed, I practice the one-two step of salsa, my heart pounding to the clave and congas. We are a class of beginners, and we follow along, mess up the steps, and laugh. The heavy air mixes with our sweat, so we can’t distinguish between the water of our bodies and the water of the world. The ceiling fans slice circles in the air above. The sky outside goes a dark gray, first with the anticipation of rain and then with night. I know there’s birdsong, too, but can’t hear it over the music.
With each shuffle of my feet, swing of my hips, it’s as if the borders of my body disappear, and everything enters me—the music, the heat, the whirl of the fans. Fluid takes on a new definition, and maybe the real one. Everything else falls away, and I think, It’s like I’m in a movie, because of how faraway I am from the usual rhythms of my home life: grading papers, attending committee meetings, walking the dog with my husband. The relief of detachment is something like bliss—how much freer I feel—how much more alive! I told my husband I wanted to take this trip to Mexico alone to work on my Spanish. I didn’t tell him how unsure I had felt about our marriage, how desperate I had been to break away and spend some time alone.
I watch the handsome Spanish teacher practice his moves across the room. His maneuvers are stilted like mine. When the salsa instructor asks us to pair up, the Spanish teacher asks me to dance with him, and my face flushes with pleasure, then surprise. The salsa instructor calls out, “Adelante, atras, adelante, atras.” As we slide forward and back on the tile floor, I catch the Spanish teacher’s kind eyes, and he smiles.
While the others switch partners, the Spanish teacher and I stay together, working on our steps, fumbling and laughing and fumbling again. I am slick with sweat and the forcefield of heat under his shirt pulls me closer. Over his shoulder, I stare past the other students, past the low balcony wall and the wires. A constellation of starlings lifts above, swooping and swirling, shape-shifting into what looks like a question mark in the sky. I want to live inside of that question. For I, too, am above and beyond the cars below and the sacred trees with their flame-throwing flowers, the electrical wires slicing through the boundary of my body—the arms and elbows, legs and feet detached and floating, morphed into musical notes, the syncopation of desire.
From this elevated vantage point—feeling as if I am outside of my body, observing from a safe distance—I know this is the moment that will change everything, that will crack the foundations and dismantle my life. A shimmering freedom, a sharp aliveness, comes from none of that mattering. We will dance together and then away from one another, attempting a vuelta, and then moving closer yet again, his long fingers catching on my wedding ring again and again.
If you want to see what became of this experience, I published a number of essays about that. They appear in my book Bad Tourist, or you can find an essay called “The Hotel Cadiz” here.
What You Will Need
A way to write
A place you will be unbothered
A timer
The Writing Exercise
Think about the moments in your life (or a character’s life) where you have felt desire that was somehow complicated. Maybe your parents forbid the union, or you were married to someone else, or society somehow looked down upon the match. Or maybe you desired someone who was unavailable or didn't share your feelings. Set your timer for 5 minutes, and make a list of everything you can think of.
When your timer goes off, have a look at your list. Which story do you most want to tell? Which story would drive the plot of your novel forward? Or make a compelling poem? Choose one, set your timer for another 10 minutes, and make an inventory of things: specifics of place, sensory detail, pieces of dialogue—anything you can come up with that will ground your scene or your poem in specific detail. For example, the details I jotted down to begin my scene above were balcony, salsa dancing, electrical wires, starlings, wedding ring.
When your timer goes off again, use your list to write a scene (fiction or nonfiction) or a poem. Set your timer for 10 minutes and write, not worrying about revision as you go—just write. And since this may be a sensitive topic, write as if no one will ever see what you’ve written.
When your timer goes off again, have a look at what you’ve written. Is it the seed for a poem, essay, story, or chapter? If you would like, please share what you’ve written with us in the comments or let us know how it went. Questions are welcome as well.
Bonus Prompt
If you haven’t already, do the exercise above, using a specific time, place, and description as I did, centering on some sort of desire. Set your timer for 20 minutes and write. Don’t worry about making changes or edits as you go. Just see what comes. If you like what you’ve written, why not revise it and submit it to this call?
Upcoming Workshops
I’ll be offering a generative, virtual one-hour writing workshop on Tuesday, August 13th from 4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT, which is included with an annual paid subscription. The topic will be based on August’s monthly theme.
I’ll also be offering a Travel Writing Workshop with Story Studio Chicago’s Summer Creative Nonfiction Series on Tuesday, August 20th from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. PDT. More information is available here.
Thank you for being here.
Until next time,
Suzanne
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My books: Bad Tourist, Animal Bodies, Almost Somewhere
Great prompt 👍 Excellent essay ✨️