I started writing TBSOL pretty much right after I finished Alix & Valerie. It had been a story in my head for months. I had told everyone I knew about my idea, and they all seemed really unenthusiastic about it. I couldn’t find one person - of my normally really supportive friends - who told me that The Blind Side of Love was going to be any good.

No matter. I was in love with the story, and I was going to write it. So I started it in the summer of 2001, which is when I finished A&V. I was twenty-one.

The response to The Blind Side of Love blows me away to this day. It’s been almost five years since I started posting that story on the Internet, and almost two and a half since I ‘finished’ it. The impact of that story on my life is immeasurable, truly.

I’ve met some of my dearest friends because of that story. People who mean the world to me and whom I wouldn’t have met any other way. One of my good friends met the love of her life (in a way) thanks to TBSOL. And now they’re married.

It’s been translated into French (partly), Spanish (fully) and Turkish (last I heard). I got invited to the BardFest in D.C. where I got to stand in front of hundreds of people who clapped and cheered when I said who I was. I’m still not over how surreal that was for me. I got to watch a middle aged woman completely freak out that she was meeting me, while fumbling around to find something to get my autograph.

For Christmas and my birthday, I’d receive gifts from total strangers who just wanted to thank me for putting my work online.

I’ve received about 8,000 or so emails/comments about TBSOL. Some from people going through break-ups that told me it cheered them up. Some from married women who didn’t know how to come out to themselves, or their spouses. Some from people who are lonely. Some from straight men. Some from straight women. Some from teenagers struggling with sexuality. Some from people struggling with issues of sexuality and religion. Most memorably, to me, from people who were very ill. One woman told me it made her last days on Earth just a little brighter. I’m pretty sure I stared at my screen blankly after reading that, not knowing what to say.

Because of this book, I met the love of my life. Because of this book, I’m now living in France, learning another language, working a job I love.

Other than about $70 I made from a very short-lived fundraiser when my computer was on its way out and my readers wanted to chip in and help (I stopped it because I felt weird taking money like that, over something as insignificant as needing a new computer - though those $70 helped feed me the following month when I had zero money and no way to pay rent), I’ve never made any money from TBSOL. What the novel has brought to me has been so much more valuable than money could ever be.

I could rewrite this novel 1,000 times to appease my desire to be a better writer, and to write a better novel, but I don’t think that I could possibly acheive anything more than I have already.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the words and putting them together. I spend so much time thinking about what a failure The Blind Side of Love is and how it could be better. It’s so easy to forget all of the emails, comments, messages I’ve received that have pointed to what’s really important.

No one has ever said, “This story is a work of art” (well, maybe Karine), but thousands of people have said to me, “This story made me think.” “Made me laugh.” “Made me happy.”

And truly, that’s all I’ve ever wanted my writing to do.

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