LOMS Inspiration for Scene #2 - (Spoiler) Sisters Fight

Readers have been asking for what scenes are pulled from real stories, and I am happy to share the first of many from book 2, Lips on my Soul.

The legendary Josephine and Simone Fight Scene...

Okay, before I get in to this, I should state that I have a wonderful relationship with my own sister, but we definitely have our moments, even today as adults.

Yes, this is a personal story of mine and my sister’s. When I was bringing Simone into book 2, I knew there was going to be an epic blowout between the two sisters, but I didn’t realize where I was going with the scene until I actually was writing it. And as I was writing it, I couldn’t stop giggling. Finished the scene, called up Sam, read it to her, and we laughed our asses off.

Sam and I are six years apart, four more years than Simone and Josephine. I can admit that I was a pain in the ass little sister. I followed Sam everywhere and wanted to do everything she did—you know, little sibling trying to emulate their older sibling.

There was always a battle for Saturday morning cartoons, usually involving a fight over watching the Smurfs versus Strawberry Shortcake (yes, I’m dating myself—shut it haters). One day, Sam realized she was bigger than me—six years will do that for you. Angry that I had gotten up first and put on the Smurfs, she wrestled me to the ground, pinned me there, while she repeatedly lowered spit-loogies onto my forehead until I relinquished my television privileges. Once she learned that it worked, she did it every Saturday morning ‘till I was big enough to wrestle her off of me.

Sure, this happened when we were kids, but are you going to judge me if I tell you this happened when we were adults too?

Yeah, I can’t recall the incident to perfect clarity, but I do recall it happened while she was visiting and it was family game night. I believe we were playing Taboo and my sister and I always partnered up because we were super competitive and our husbands needed to go down. Sam and I were arguing over a card. The word was ‘stroller’ and Sam kept on repeating ‘Buggy,’ because me saying no once meant she should repeat it another dozen times. (Like who the hell uses the word ‘buggy’ these days, Sam). We lost the round, we started arguing, alcohol was involved (probably bourbon). Somehow we ended up pulling on each others’ hair, screaming, kicking, and then I ended up on the bottom with a spit-string touching my nose.

When I sent this scene to my editor, Yas was like, “Nu-uh, remove. Grown women don’t fight like this.” And I was like, “well, actually…” My editor’s response was, “Dear Lowd!” Needless to say, I got to keep the fight scene in the book.

I know some of you diehard fans are aching to know if what Maceo said during that scene is true…Can you really not watch porn because of the spit that is involved in some scenes?

That is true as well. I threw that conversation in the book as a shout out to my husband. When Sam and I had stopped our fight, the first thing out of my husband’s mouth was that he now understood why I couldn’t watch porn without gagging.

And there you have it. Fight scene between sisters in LOMS = true story. Have a lovely day everyone!