When I mention Bulletproof, my BDSM love story, or even the novel I had published in 2018, people almost always ask ‘How are sales?’, rarely do I get asked: How does it feel to imagine and create a world, a whole relationship?’ I could reply with a cliche such as ‘It’s priceless’ but it’s more than that. It is, of course, all about love.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to sell a million – two million – TEN million – copies, have the Netflix series, the movie, the merch! I would love all of that and yet what I have, instead, right now, is how writing this most recent story has changed me.
This is partly because the person ‘Bulletproof’ was written about, and for, changed me, changed everything, but also because I allowed the change to happen within myself. I took the risk to feel, to immerse myself in this imagined place, in this imagined love. I allowed myself to feel all of it and, in feeling, created something that I believe to be pretty special. The creativity that has been sparked by this friendship, by my own inner work, has been incredible to experience. I hope for that experience of enthusiasm, that passion to just CREATE, for all of us. Relationships and friendships, connection, can, and should, invite us to be more, create more: to bring more of ourself into the world.
I sometimes feel like Queen Victoria, filling London with temples to her love.
I sometimes hesitate to use the word ‘love’ because so many people think this means holding hands, planning a holiday and a shared bathroom sink. To me it means so much more than that. It means being with life exactly as it is as opposed to how you wish it were or think it should be. It means never counting the cost of caring about someone. It means not asking for more than someone wants to give as well as knowing where your own internal and external lines are drawn. It means putting your own happiness and growth front and center as well as respecting another’s choices and path to happiness, even when, especially when, that path doesn’t include you.
I wrote Bulletproof as a testament to how someone helped me feel and how those feelings changed me. Who knows what will spark the future fire? Who knows what (or who) will spark a fire in you?
Bulletproof can be bought on Amazon as an e-book or as a PDF download here
