The process of writing I Wanted to Live was not as easy as I hoped it would be.
If you’ve read my previous book, you already know that I once came close to death. This time, I came closer than ever. And when you write from that edge, you don’t get to pretend. You don’t get to decorate the truth. You either write honestly, or you don’t write at all.
I don’t want to spoil the book, but I Wanted to Live is a book about regret in all its forms. It’s about wanting something deeply and being unable to reach it. Sometimes because of circumstances. Sometimes because of people. And sometimes because of yourself. Because of who you were. Because of your past. Because of decisions you made thinking there would be more time.
The writing of this book took far more time and effort than I expected. Not because the story was complex, but because it required parts of me I hadn’t fully explored before. I found those parts through the main character, Ansel. He became a place where I could put things I didn’t know how to name, let alone carry.
I won’t say much about the story itself, but it is a tragic love story. It’s a sad book. A heavy one. Writing it felt less like creation and more like endurance. Like giving birth to something that hurts while it’s coming into the world, and continues to hurt after.
This is one of the hardest books I’ve ever written. When you come so close to death, and then wake up every day to write about tragedy, the line between fiction and life starts to dissolve. You wake up and continue weaving pain. Sometimes your own. Sometimes the pain of others. And you do it with your own hands, sentence by sentence, until it becomes intimate.
At some point, the story stops feeling like a story. It feels alive. It feels attached to you. All the regrets, the losses, the unanswered questions start living inside you. They follow you outside the pages. They sit with you in silence. They don’t ask for permission.
Putting all of that on paper is a strange experience. Necessary, but strange. It feels like removing something from your chest and only then realizing how heavy it was. You don’t feel relief right away. You feel exposed. Empty. Quiet in a way that takes time to understand.
I Wanted to Live wasn’t written to be comforting.
It wasn’t written to be easy.
It was written because it had to be.
