Louisa Simmonds

English: typewriter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We had a rare moment of togetherness in the kitchen of Dysfunctionality House late last night.

It’s funny how those really special parenting moments are often impromptu and never the precious moments that you plan carefully, that always seem to go tits up.

And moments where NC and Kurt laugh together are more rare these days. Not necessarily due to a lack of sibling affection, although as I’ve mentioned before, they tolerate each other. But because we all lead busy lives – in particular NC. On the nights that she’s not fleecing middle-aged men for tips in our local bar or dividing rock strata at uni, NC spends much of her free time with NB, planning future rock excursions.

So last night, with the old man quietly tucked up in bed pretending to be ill (aided by an over-dose of Codeine, that I might have administered to help him shut the fuck up), I set about what feels like the eternal process of editing my book.

It’s the sex scenes that give me the biggest headaches.

There are several issues with me writing sex scenes. First, there is the issue of how much I can actually remember about good sex, and then there’s the problem that two of my main characters are teenagers and I’m writing from their sexual perspective. As my last experience of sex as a teenager was back in the Medieval times, (according to my children), sounding authentic can be problematic.

So I asked for their advice.

I carefully selected one particularly erotic passage that I have been struggling with for a while and read it out in my best Richard Burton luvvie voice.

Their response wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Within seconds the pair of them were falling off their kitchen chairs, laughing like hyenas. I was confused. The paragraph was supposed to be sensual; a sexual build-up of tension between two kids falling in love. If anything, I had been expecting an awed response at the persuasive quality of my literary genius.

Not guffaws suggestive of awkwardness and ridicule.

‘Mum, NO-ONE uses the word ‘nipple’ anymore – it’s one of the grossest words in the English language.’ Kurt pointed out.

‘MOIST,’ they both yelled in unison. ‘Who uses the word ‘MOIST? Ewwwwwwww!’

‘Why don’t you throw SMEGMA in there too’, added Kurt, ‘just to make sure you really corner the market in making people feel as uncomfortable as possible’.

*Digs out Fifty Shades of Grey from bookshelf*.

#writing #Youngadultfiction #sexscene #Humor #teenagers #FiftyShadesofGrey #love