A Novel Experiment: Episode 11 - In Which Project Burnout Strikes...HARD
And I Write Two Chapter Braindumps out of Spite
Last Episode:
A Warm-up Argument—with Myself
Cayse: Ugh. Not gonna lie. I’m a bit burnt out on this project.
Pounce: No, you aren’t.
Cayse: Uh, pretty sure I am though Mr. Contradictory.
Pounce: Nope. You are feeling insecure about your validity as a writer, the trajectory of your career, the continued sluggish and encouraging—albeit still unsuccessful—trek that Copper Canary is taking through the trenches, and are looking for a reason to meet the generalized external and societal expectations that you do the “sensible thing” and give up on yourself like a good little burden of society.
Cayse: Lies.
Pounce: Are they though?
Cayse: Yes. All of them. And I think we’ve warmed our snark up plenty at this point. Can we move on from this now and get going with drafting Chapter 6 before we lose motivation again?
Pounce: Uh huh. Want to try that again with some transparency please?
Cayse: Fine. “Can we get a move in before my body recovers from whatever illness it has decided to contract, and I no longer have any justifiable, Cayse-approved reasons to draft more than my planned article quota for the week?
Pounce: Only if you confess to our imaginary audience where things lie on the whole Novel Experiment “real experts reviewing the robot” phase.
Cayse: Deal.
Hello, devoted-est of devoted readers.
As mentioned in prior episodes, I am on the hunt for real life literary professionals who are willing to provide feedback on Chat’s performance as an AuDHD writing coach. We had an early lead fall through unfortunately, but we are back on track with a few new promising leads.
That said, and although I hope for this to be rolling out in the coming months in episodic installments, everyone I am speaking with is doing this on a volunteer basis and time is tight as we all know. I promise to post it as soon as we have it. You’ll find them under the Bones of Polly Olly heading when they come out.
As a reminder, the following labels are used for series content and are delineated as follows:
A Novel Experiment (ANE) - Crafting of the drafts. Dialogic essays showing the raw process of creating a story from scratch.
Bones of Polly Olly - The behind the scenes look at all of everything that makes this project tick from the perspective of an AuDHD author reflecting on her own work, to other professionals reflecting on how she’s done so far.
Polly Olly Oxen Free - Chapters only, released as early drafts and updated as soon as they are edited! Questions and suggestion highly encouraged!
cheshire + jabberwocky - A spin-off of ANE. This is what you might call Chat’s “farm in the countryside.” It is where I have allocated space for exploratory conversations with them to still be experimented with and published. Always best to keep your enemies closest after all.
I hope to update you all soon on when the first review has been completed!
Ever your unsure-est of authors,
Cayse
Cayse: There. Happy, Pounce?
Pounce: Moderately. You didn’t have to be so formal and stuffy about it all.
Cayse: It’s called writing with CLARITY.
Pounce: Makes us sound mad.
Cayse: Well, we aren’t. So, please stop being petulant and call up next steps for Polly Olly.
Pounce: Fine. We never finished giving the last chapter the scene with Polly and Uncle Ali and the ant farm or Polly and her Mother
Cayse: Ouch. Okay. That’s true.
Pounce: And she needs to get the locket.
Cayse: That’s it?
Pounce: Pretty sure that is all we can be trusted with. Word count was waaaaaay over last time.
Cayse: Right …. So… outline?
Chapter 6 Pre-Outline
Pounce: Good God yes. And I don’t know why the hell we skipped the formal one’s last time after the brain dumps. So, this time, here’s my recommendation for the major points to hit. You can make the formal outline from there:
Start scene with Pol freaked out about the grin.
This distracts her from some of the more disturbing revelations Ali tries to hint at or get her to share with him.
Mid-scene he goes and grabs the apple which snaps her back in to the moment.
Apple/Ant scene with locket
induces irrational reaction from pol since it is her grandparents inside and they are the ones who sent him which is ridiculous because they are NEVER around.
Ali tries to defend them. Pol isn’t having it. First argument between them surfaces as Ali tries to explain the apple and ants.
Ali leaves but not before she notice him notice the smile on the console. He leaves the locket with her. She throws it on the top of the ant farm and then thinks better of it when it sparks. She sets it in her lap but it is too heavy. Puts it in her arm cast finally and logs into the game that had beeping at her this whole time.
THEN
We transition into a different format of writing for the gameplay intro and fable or whatever that sets up the world and rules.
Pol designs her character, sees that Demi has gone with Hoggle from Labyrinth riding Falkor. Decides to be Sarah from Labyrinth riding nothing because discovers she has to earn that.
Instant-competition ignites.
She is immediately chatting with Telly and Tibbs who welcome her.
She is momentarily distracted and delighted to find Telly is Ludo Riding a Rockbiter with the worm, all with the fairies from Neverland as their flurrying posse;
and Tibbs is a Queen of Hearts/Doors of Labyrinth/Rainbow Brite/MasterChief Hybrid masterpiece that rides atreyu and has Gmork as a lapdog and the marching trees from LOTRs holding playing cards like ninja stars.
Which fits so much it hurt.
When her character loads her screen and only shows Pollyanna not what she chose and her outfit switches to Sara in an Alice costume. Next to her a bunny shows up.
Tibbs is furious that got a special rabbit that he hasn’t gotten yet and immediately refuses to help her with anything until she tells him how she got it and how she managed to mix packs with 0xp.
Telly defends Pol who is too dumbfounded by how immersive the game is beginning to feel.
(Text should switch from pol’s ‘character does’ to ‘pol does’ and ‘pol feels’)
Telly says it must be a glitch given how old Pol’s console is. Tibbs is not satisfied.
Telly leaves Pol to enter a private chat with Tibbs.
Pol goes around getting used to the game.
Gets a friend request from Demi and the bunny attacks him when he flies to her location.
Pol cracks up.
Telly and Tibbs show back up and Tibbs is now even more upset believing Pol had gotten the Monty python bunny not Reggie. Which calms him down because he hasn’t seen this yet and decides it must be a noob mod.
Tibbs volunteers to go make things right with her boytoy by gifting him “all the things” and Telly warns Pol Mom is coming up.
Pol goes to leave the game and sees the grin form in the sky, realizes she feels oddly inside the game, like further than she should be for a handheld game, she goes for the exit button but the smile swallows the button,
Pol hears her mother enter and call her name. It seems distant, she chastises herself for getting so sucked into this game.
Determines this must be a trick of the game. Solve a puzzle to save your game or something. She could figure that out though—
Mom rips the console away.
Pol wrenches into reality and lands back into her body like she’s been slammed back into a wall.
Only now registering that while playing the game her limbs had felt free for the first time in months.
This ratchets up her irritation with her mother. But it quickly dissipates after seeing how ragged she looks.
Mom asks Pol about why Uncle Ali was here and if Pol had called him.
She claims her grandparents are denying that they sent him and are saying she called him.
Mom doesn’t believe she would have done this, especially after the fallout between Uncle Ali and Pol’s Dad.
Pol bristles and says if Dad wants to talk to her about his brother he can come and complain, but she didn’t call him. Mentions Tibbs did.
Mom looks shocked. Asks if it was from the hall or from Pol’s room. Pol answers and Mom gets up shaking.
Pol demands answers. Mom gives some half-answered excuse of an explanation that sounds far too close to Uncle Ali’s explanation earlier in the chapter to be a coincidence.
Pol snaps.
Asks if this is yet another fucked up game her family is forcing her to take part in.
Mom denies this but Pol gets louder.
This brings Dad up.
Dad and Pol start verbally sparring louder than she’s let herself in a long time. Not since she became full Pollyanna.
Uncle Ali, Tibbs, and Telly burst into the room.
Dad brings up wanting to sue Saffi’s parents but Pol being too selfish to care about the rest of the family.
Ali points out the reality of why doing that would be selfish as hell of him because it would bankrupt the company and put thousands out of health insurance and saffi out of coma the hard way just so what? Pol can have a “shot” at becoming a track star?
Dad shoots back at Ali, that now you shit head so we don’t end up on the goddamned street! You think this is about whether we can send her to college? That’s been off the table for months! We are barely surviving her goddamned medical bills. And you’d know that if you hadn’t run away from your own goddamned responsibilities!
Ali bursts into a dark bulge of black. Or it looks that way as Pol passes out from stress.
Pol wakes up to a white rabbit nuzzling her nose. She swats it away and sits up in a grassfield.
Cayse: Wow, Imma stop you there.
Pounce: Okay.
Cayse: Got a bit carried away there did we?
Pounce: Yeah… just a bit lol
Cayse: What happened to “stick to ant farm, mom, and locket.”
Pounce: … we did?
Cayse: …. I see now why we needed such a low bar.
Pounce: Yeah, we definitely have a problem with overshooting.
Cayse: We really do.
Pounce: But that’s okay! Now we get to make it into a more outline friendly format!
Cayse: Not a chance. That is article editing Cayse’s problem. We already started off burnt out and you just burnt through our reserves with whatever the hell that marathon thought dump was.
Pounce: it wasn’t THAT much.
Cayse: We wrote 1,003 words in less than 20 minutes while simultaneously doing bedtime with our kids.
Pounce: Touché.
Cayse: This is why we burnout. We have like ONE speed. So irritating.
Pounce: …
Cayse: So.
Pounce: Outline Chapter 7?
Cayse: Obviously.
Chapter 7 Pre-Outline
Pounce: Hit me. I’m ready.
Cayse: Pol freaks out.
Pounce: Naturally.
Cayse: Right? I would. So, she freaks out, bunny stays calm. Giving very fed-up Echo-from-copper-canary vibes.
Pounce: No one is going to understand that reference.
Cayse: Yeah, well. We do. So, stop interrupting.
Pounce: Carry on.
Cayse: Mid freak out Pol realizes she is standing. She chokes on a cry and senses her feet. Stretching and bending. Walks around. Jumps in small hops. THEN
The bunny hops on front of her and starts to jog ahead with a look back like “um, you coming?”
Pol grins wide and starts to jog.
Then starts to run.
Then starts to sprint.
The bunny keeps up.
Then suddenly the creepy floating smile is right next to her and the Cheshire Cat materializes in front of her.
She rams into him.
He is enormous.
Think neverbeast from fairies movies.
Literally. Just purple and pink.
Chesh welcomes her to Wonderland.
She protests that this is a dream and she is technically in a video game.
Never-Cheshbeast explains that this not a dream but yes, technically they had to get creative with the portal due to her predicament.
Being stuck in a body cast doesn’t bode well for physical travel to the traditional physical entry points.
It’s a sideways entry. A bridge. But it is rather fun Chesh admits. They like the new characters. The classics do get so boring after a while. Especially since Uncle Ali has yet to hold up his end of their bargain.
Tibbs and Telly fly in to the game
Tibbs is instantaneously jealous of the never cheshire.
Pol rolls her eyes and tells him the cheshire is all his.
Cheshire raises an eyebrow. Asks if she means this.
Pol says of course. Why not?
Cheshire grins wide and goes with Tibbs who has handed Atreyu to Pol and flown off with gmork and chesh.
The bunny takes one look at Pol in horror and sprints after them.
Telly is laughing but then frowns as they look at Pol’s neck.
Asks how Pol managed to customize Uncle Ali’s locket into the game so quickly.
Pol looks down and grabs the necklace.
Opens locket and finds chesh and the bunny looking at her. Chesh winks, the locket slams shut.
Pol opens her eyes to herself in bed, console on her lap.
The transition into her body is just worse than before.
Freedom to complete immobility is horrid.
She glances at the locket now hung around her neck and sees a card next to the apple and ants. She shrugs it all off as a very realistic dream.
The card is from her parents and uncle. It is a joint apology, probably recommended by Gena Pol decides since the room smells like her perfume.
Which meant she had already arrived and would be headed back up here to get started on morning exercises whenever she was finished “getting her parents update on the state of her mental health.”
Pol watches the ants and is disturbed to discover that one has died and the others are simply walking over it.
When Gena arrives she is markedly more friendly and professional than the previous session that was written.
Gena NOW can give her the lecture on being content with what you still can do doesn’t stop progress.
Pol is unimpressed. She points out the ant. Complains that Gena is correct. Progress never stops. Even when it fucking should.
Gena pushes back that progress is just time with an output.
Pol cries out that she has no output. So why the hell does everyone expect progress?
Gena says she needs time to calm down. Pol says she needs a PT who gets that she needs more than platitudes and bullshit.
Gena leaves.
Pol retreats to Polly Olly.
Runs off her anger.
Discovers the first few quests, easy game play, no Cheshire, no rabbit. Just Pol.
NPC’s seem determined to just follow their programming regardless of outcome. Pol is pissed at this.
She adjusts their set up so they can get a break.
Finishes her tasks and their tasks and creates a system to keep everybody’s “daily tasks checked off continually.”
NPC’s start running with her.
End of chapter shows Demi’s character watching her, she ignores him.
A message pops up asking if he can bring spike over.
She agrees.
Bonus: Next chapter needs to maybe include something about how Gena discusses options with the school and Mom comes in with Dad and they explain that the university has now decided to offer her a partial academic scholarship with a chance at tryouts the following season if she decides she doesn’t feel ready to attend this years summer training.
Pol complains the partial academic scholarship is barely a discount that doesn’t even guarantee her a spot and Gena is a freaking traitor.
Parents agree about college, don’t agree about Gena. Try to discuss things with her. Explain their concerns about her behavior lately. Liken it to Uncle Ali before things went dark for him…
Pol demands to know where he is. They go mum. She says they can talk to her when they get him back in the house.
Pounce: Alright then.
Cayse: Happy? Cause I’m not. I’m as bad as you were the first round.
Pounce: Yeah. But it is a decent start.
Cayse: What do we keep doing wrong?
Pounce: Same issue as last time. Too long, not organized. Yada yada yada.
Cayse: Okay, well. I think this is just how we pre-outline. Our brain works in stream of conscious. THEN we bento box it later.
Besides. We have a publishing schedule to follow. We got limited time to write and we are entering holiday season which means kid break extravaganza.
Coming Up Next
Pounce: Then we need to slow down production. Maybe next release isn’t the chapters. Next release we do the step between the brain dump stream of conscious outline and the draft chapter. That step we often do in our head as we write: A PROPER outline.
Cayse: …
Pounce: What?
Cayse: But we haaaaaaateee writing proper outlines!! It is a pointless time waster because I can just do it in my head! Besides, I always have to swap it around and cut and paste it when I’m writing the first draft anyway so it just makes me mad when I write them and don’t follow them.
Pounce: Yes. I am fully aware of that.
Cayse: Can’t we just bullet point the stream of conscious in the article and call it an outline?
Pounce: No.
Cayse: Whyyyy?
Pounce: Because it isn’t one? And besides, writing a GOOD one is a BETTER way to illustrate to our imaginary audience what our brain is doing between this step and the draft. Especially if we don’t stick to it.
Cayse: You are making me “show my work.”
Pounce: Yes. We have to do it AT LEAST once.
Cayse: I hate us.
Pounce: Yeah, well, me too.
But.
We just wrote two very different brain dump outlines and this would be a great point in time to illustrate what this looks like and how it can differ and when and why things end up being shifted to different chapters and how we make those decisions.
Cayse: Fine. I guess we can then also point out how my braindump outlines never really point out the craft level details.
Pounce: Scope creep. We’ll tackle that monster another episode.
Cayse: Fair enough. Whelp, until next time folx! Be sure to throw your ideas in comments or in DMs!
Pounce: Or like, subscribe, share, all that stuff. It helps.
Cayse: It really, really does. Otherwise, it feels like I’m talking to a void. And when that happens it starts to feel a bit more tempting to take Pol’s approach and sink into a video game instead.
Pounce: So, do your part. Interact, or Cayse will get sucked into a video and it will be your fault.
Cayse: That isn’t what I’m saying.
Pounce: Mmmm…but it kinda is.
Cayse: No. The End. This is the end of the article. THE END. Now go send it off.
Pounce: Fiiine.
But not until I’m done reformatting the pre-outlines with bullet points.
And section titles.
There.