Nasty letters on the table

The more I've become acquainted with other writers and their publications, the more I realize that in today's society, the book I am writing is NOT an erotica.

I think the reason I originally thought it was, has to do with my age. What is commonly acceptable in the way of sex and language in books now day would have never been allowed for sale at places like Walmart or the local grocery. Those books would have been purchased online and shipped wrapped in brown paper -- not that I would know from first hand experience. Not more than once, or twice -- honestly!

My book is a paranormal with real language used by real people during stressful times of their lives. And the sex? Well, it happens. There are actually only two or three detailed love scenes in the book, the rest are left up to your ability to imagine. But the detailed ones are . . . well, detailed.

Twenty years ago, (and doesn't that just suck to reach an age where you can use that phrase) I would have been shocked at the degree of openness and detail found in sex scenes today. Now, it is normal.

What brings all of this to the fore at the moment, is that I am currently rewriting a chapter where the entire 16 pages of it are one long, hot, detailed love scene. The reason I wrote it originally was that I was having trouble meeting my daily quota during NaNo and I figured writing sex was easy. Hell, I have more than 20 years experience in, how hard can it be to describe it?

Now that I have to reexamine the chapter I am still not sorry I wrote it. It actually serves as a turning point in the main couples lives. What I need to do is add more feelings, emotions, reasoning into it. I also need to find more ways to call a carrot a carrot.

So over the last few weeks, as I've read books with similar scenes to the one I'm editing, I have jotted down notes on papers. Words, phrases, positions. Anything that will allow me to broaden and add depth, or varsity, to my sex scene.

It was raining today, so I took Will to Burger King to play. It's close to our house and we are there so often they know my order before I place it.

I printed out my chapter, and took along all my loose papers on jotted notes along to work on. After eating, Will went off to play and I spread out everything and started rewriting. It was going wonderful.

Then Will had one of those, "I have to go NOW" moments and I grabbed my purse and ran for the bathroom. Where we remained for the next 15 minutes. When we walked back into the play room, a female employee was cleaning up the table next to ours while craning her neck to read the papers I'd left spread all over the table.

She immediately finished up and left the room, without looking me in the eye.

I've been wondering all day, exactly what she read. And who she told.

I'm almost embarrassed to think about going back to that place for lunch.