What Writing The Taste of Crimson: Angyel Taught Me About Wanting

 For a long time, I believed wanting was something you either grew out of—or learned to keep quiet.

Not because it vanished, but because life teaches you efficiency. Responsibility. Survival. You learn how to make things work. You learn how to be reasonable. And somewhere along the way, wanting begins to feel indulgent, even dangerous.

I didn’t start writing The Taste of Crimson: Angyel because I wanted to explore desire. I started because I wanted to understand what happens when a woman goes still, and what it costs her to stay that way.

Wanting Is Not the Same as Lacking

One of the first things Angyel taught me is that wanting is often misunderstood.

Wanting isn’t desperation. It isn’t neediness. It isn’t proof that something is wrong. In the story, a quiet truth emerges; one that became a guiding line for the entire book:

“Wanting is not weakness.”

That sentence isn’t a rallying cry. It’s a correction.

Wanting is information. It’s the body and the self communicating honestly, long before the mind finds the language to explain it. Angyel’s wanting isn’t about absence—it’s about awareness.

The Body Knows Before the Mind Agrees

This book demanded that I write from the body, not just the intellect.

Angyel doesn’t wake up one morning and decide to change her life. There is no dramatic declaration. Instead, her awareness arrives subtly—through sensation, discomfort, curiosity, resistance. Her body recognizes the shift long before her mind gives permission.

That was uncomfortable to write.

It meant trusting physical knowing. Letting moments linger. Allowing desire to be quiet, inconvenient, and deeply personal. It reminded me how often we override our own instincts because they don’t fit the story we’ve been telling ourselves about who we are allowed to be.

Midlife Wanting Is Different, and That Matters

Writing desire in midlife is different than writing it in youth.

It’s slower. More deliberate. More layered.

There is history in the body. Memory. Loss. Wisdom. The wanting isn’t about novelty, it’s about truth. About alignment. About finally asking: What do I actually want, now that I know myself better?

Angyel is in her fifties. She has survived enough to know the cost of silence, and enough courage to begin listening anyway. Her journey isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about reclaiming parts of herself that were set aside in the name of safety, predictability, and endurance.

Wanting Requires Courage, Not Recklessness

One of the biggest lessons this book taught me is that honoring desire isn’t reckless—it’s brave.

Listening to wanting means risking change. It means acknowledging that the life you built may no longer fit exactly the way it once did. It means facing the fear that comes with curiosity.

Angyel doesn’t rush. She doesn’t burn everything down. She listens. She pays attention. She allows herself to feel without immediately needing resolution.

In writing her, I learned that wanting doesn’t demand action; it asks for honesty.

Why I Hope This Story Resonates

I didn’t write The Taste of Crimson: Angyel to shock or provoke. I wrote it to tell the truth about what it feels like to wake up—slowly, quietly—to yourself.

If this story resonates with you, I hope it’s because it mirrors something you recognize. A question you’ve avoided. A feeling you’ve dismissed. A longing you thought had an expiration date.

Wanting is not weakness. It is not a failure of gratitude. It is not a flaw to be corrected.

It is a signal that you are alive, and still listening.

The Taste of Crimson: Angyel releases February 14.

If you choose to read it, I hope it meets you exactly where you are.

The Taste of Crimson: Angyel