Emma Hardy

And I realized that if I wanted to write something that truthfully explored those themes, then I needed to be honestly and vulnerably on the page.

And then for me, the book became an exciting project when I read this book on structure called Meander Spiral Explode.

And one of the chapters talks about spirals as a narrative structure, as like an obsessive way of turning an idea over and over and looking at it from different angles.

And I was just so in love with that idea that I was like, oh, I can turn this painful experience into this like obsessive vortex.

like indulge that repetition that both mirrors like what it feels like to write from like a woman's cycle as opposed to the traditional narrative arc which more accurately reflects a male orgasm like one and done I can like do something more cyclical and have fun with it and focus on a book that's about the experience as opposed to the institution so that got me excited about the book

Yeah, cool.

I'm glad I have no idea if it is effective or it works, but it got me excited about the process of structuring

yeah that's really interesting because I said that to my friend when I was reading it I was like I feel like I'm going like it's kind of it kept going back like I was like I feel like this is looping a little bit yeah and now that makes so much sense hearing you say that but it kept me hooked I was like oh I'm glad because I'm like there's so many ways that it's just going to be well this is a bit repetitive and it's like yes but that is also my experience is that there's like repetition and that can be a poetic repetition

That can be coming back to the same idea, but with new understanding.

That can be coming back to the same idea with frustration as well.

And that structure felt really exciting to me.

I hope that people feel less insane about being insane.

I hope that people feel like they don't have to have it all together, that they don't have to have all the answers and are able to

be comfortable with themselves at their worst.

I think for me that's what works best.

Like that's how I feel healthiest now is that like I have like an acceptance that I,

I'm an angry person and that does not make me a bad person.

Like I can feel bad things.

It doesn't mean I have to do bad things.

And I hope that people who read it can see some of themselves in that.