Crush FAQ youtube series: Question 12: Why the middle section about Tammy and Jamie apart?

Hi everyone! Today I made a new youtube video for the Crush FAQ series. The link is posted below the blog entry.

I made this video to try to explain exactly why I chose to write a few chapters about the lives of Tammy and Jamie while they were separated for 16 yrs. I wanted the readers to see them as separate individuals, what they did with their lives, and how everything that happens to them makes them strong enough to be together at last. I felt that the period of separation would make their reunion that much more powerful, and that the readers would see that even after they both succeed in having productive lives and thriving careers, they were still both lonely and damaged, and that nothing would ever fill the void caused by each other's absence.

Like Tammy and Jamie, each reader is an individual. Each is going to open my book expecting different things, absorbing different things, and taking different things away.

In no way am I putting down those who thought the chapters in question were boring or didn't do anything for the story. I am simply explaining my decision to write Crush the way I wrote it. For me, Crush is more than romance or erotica or about gay men. It is a story of two people's lives, together and apart.

I appreciate everyone's reviews. Even the one star reviews I've gotten help me to understand that every reader is different, and that my book will not do it for everyone. I thank everyone who has ever read the book (or tried to :)

Here's the vid link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCgKvo...