Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave...

It all started with an email about writing submissions. I'm part of a writing yahoo group that used to be very active, but lately only sends emails when someone gets a successful publishing deal. An email came across about submissions for an erotica anthology.
Now, I've never written erotica. Whenever a sex scene pops into my novels, I inevitably tone it down, leaving the details to the readers' imaginations. This submission called for erotica of 1200 words. I mean, who couldn't write that? The only problem was that I wouldn't want it associated with me. How embarassing for me, my children, my parents... So, I decided to create a pseudonym.
It took some thinking before I came up with a name that I thought would be innocent, yet provocative. Think sexy librarian. No, I'm not telling you because what would be the point of creating an anonymous pseudonym and then telling everyone.
What I didn't realize was how many steps it would take to create this fake persona. I thought I'd start a Facebook page. Before I did that, of course, I had to have an email. So I went to gmail and created an account based on my pseudonym. Then I went to Facebook. My pseudonym might as well be younger, one of us should enjoy it. She's about 10 years younger than I am, in the prime of her life. Aaah.
Of course, I can't post a picture of myself. Next I had to create an account to make an avatar. Remember that the avatar isn't of me, but of this erotica writer person. Am I giving it away by posting it on my blog? I have no idea how people can track down other people on Facebook. I sent a message to a friend asking her to add me to a group and then I wondered if that message is posted to her wall so everyone will know that it's me, posing as this other person.
I have resisted Facebook as myself. I don't want to spy on my teenagers. Really, I'd prefer not to know what they do most of the time. When I want to communicate with my parents (who do have a Facebook account but have no idea how it was created), I just call them.
I have a webpage called paulitakincer.com so any old friends searching for me should be able to find me pretty easily.
I spent a couple of hours this morning creating my fake persona.
I haven't written any erotica. Yes, I know the deadline is Monday, and chances are that I'll never finish it, much less submit it, but I did have fun playing dress up. Isn't this really the equivalent of playing let's pretend when you're a kid?
Now I'll go back to being a teacher who has papers to grade, a woman who needs to go work out at the gym, a writer who is 200 pages into her next novel, and a mother who has to get her teenagers out the door to school.
The fantasy was fun while it lasted.