Jack Mathew

The words sprouted in my mind initially as an invitation to you, the reader. If you’re here already, the least I could do is invite you inside. You should keep your shoes on, it’s a bit…messy in here.

Amongst the rubble of my internal world, I’ve picked up a habit of (finally) finishing something I’ve started. .

Let’s jump back to 2020 (sorry).

Lockdown had hit, (sorry, tigger warning), and what else was there to do but spiral into the depths of hell (my mind). I was lucky to meet a few characters along the way. Elenor, who formed as a fully fleshed character before any of the others. I battled internally on many different fronts, but found the voice of this older woman, simply not having a bar of it. I kicked off AGPTD with a third person POV following Elenor through the gates of The Glasshouse, and it was a saving grace of a distraction. To exist in a world I was building, rather than the one I was born into, felt like a much nicer place to be at the time. I wrote the first 20% following Elenor around, dipping into her mind and thinking in a way that she may have thought. It was exploratory, but fun to play with. Then came David; the tricky, confused (Libra), loving (a little too much), deceitful man. I started to follow him through the corridors of his internal struggles, which, unsurprisingly, was easy to dive into (having been in the closet myself for a number of years). David was interesting to uncover. As I peeled the layers away from him, I started to see a lot of the darker parts of myself, which was both jarring and healing all in one.

I knew the story would come together when Cecily entered the chat.
Let me preface this by saying that I never had a plan with this one, only that there was a straight (acting) man in my mind who was having an affair with his best friend (who happened to be his wives husband), and that Elenor would bring it to attention. It turned out to be so much more than that, and we somehow came to an alternate ending.

There were many parts in this book that I’d experienced first hand. The scene with Cecily and Anna in Iowa was inspired by my friend, Casey, who studied and lived abroad in the small town in the states. I pulled from the stories she would tell me about her weekends, the weather, the Americanism of it. I’ve never been to college (uni) myself, but I lived vicariously through Casey whilst I was in London. The Hydro Majestic Hotel, is a real place in Katoomba. I hosted an event there through my old corporate job for our annual conference. It’s a gorgeous building built upon the cliffside. It looks like it might just snap off at any minute. I’d ventured to the Blue Mountains many times during my stint in Sydney, and found the hikes there to be hazardous and definitely a place that I rolled my ankle many times.

Sadly, I’ve not tried Ayahuasca. I was offered it once, to which I replied, ” I would, but not tonight.”

AGPTD was so much fun.
And, I (think), I’ve mastered the art of persistence, by all means necessary.