50 pages of manuscript left (before anything I have to add). 

My kids are at day camp for 2.5 hours a day for the next two weeks. It’s looking like I might get this done before my vacation (assuming my wrists and body allow me). 

I cannot believe I am this close to turning in an ACTUAL book for publication (fingers crossed). What a year. 

I’m knee deep in a complex section of the book; so many motivations and emotions and baggage to sort through. Sex that communicates, confuses, illuminates and things my men are trying to hide — this is a part of writing that I absolutely love. 

I once tried to explain to my best friend why I write erotica. How I rarely write sex that’s *just* sex. Exploring intimacy, lack of, motivations through sex challenges and inspires me. So much of the romance I’ve read in the past (and fuck I am an *avid* romance reader), treats sex as the end goal, as the culmination of an arc; as a reader though, I was often frustrated because I wanted to understand *how* sex changed things, how it spoke to the characters. How it pushed them apart, took them apart as individuals. How it healed or broke. I have a tendency to make things complicated. The potential for this to be a strength and the worry that it will be a weakness lingers over my shoulder watchfully. 

I know that sex can just be sex; but often what calls me to writing longer stories is trying to take apart the complicated tangles of characters lives, finding each brilliant thread that makes a whole. When I’m bringing characters together, sex is a huge part of that process. 

Right now, my boys are in quagmires of their own making. They are confused and a little angry but helpless magnets when it comes to the other. 

I wondered on twitter the other day, how much sex is too much for the reader? I got a lot of thoughtful responses from readers that amounted to a similar answer — if it’s plot driven and important for the movement of the plot, it will work. 

This is what I’m trying to do here, and I am hoping so much that I can pull this off.