Inworld and Outworld

a serial story with Eiven Mitchell

Xiaowei Wang: To start off with, where are you located and what brought you to Collective Action School?

Eiven Mitchell: My name is Eiven, and my pronouns are dealer’s choice. I’m located in rural Vermont, and I got turned on to Collective Action School by a former coworker who had reached out to me to apply because of some comments I made in a Slack channel about being disillusioned by working in tech. I had actually left working in tech full time at the end of 2021. It excited me to hear about the school because it was inspiring to know that so many others were thinking similarly about the vast inequalities: in terms of those who work in tech, who use tech, who may not have access to tech and how it intersects with everyone’s experiences of societal oppression.

Xiaowei: At meeting 0, we had a moment where we brought in different people into the space with us. Who did you bring in?

Eiven: I think it was Ursula K. LeGuin, because she has written so much work that has changed the way I think about the world. I started to read her in middle school, but it wasn’t until I was an adult and really experiencing the world from the lens that she had already been reflecting on that I started to think, there’s a lot of work we need to do. Being able to apply some of her thoughts in the CAS space is probably what I was going for.

Xiaowei: What was your final project for CAS—how did it start and how is it going?

Eiven: Well, I started with a really big idea. Not to say that the idea I ended up settling on isn’t still a big idea. But my original idea was to do a device library and to get people in the community I live in interested in upcycling old phones, laptops and tablets, and repurposing them so that they can be used long term by people who don’t have access to those tools and aren’t able to get online. But, a lot of things were happening at the time and so I reformatted my project to do a serial sci-fi story that happens inside and outside of a virtual reality system.

The project was inspired by listening to Blunt from Hacking// Hustling present on how sex workers were profoundly shut out of the technical online world because of the nature of how our society views their jobs and criminalizes their work. There are obviously material implications to that: bank accounts, whether they’re eligible for certain social programs, the list goes on and on. The concept I have for the serial is a short story called “Inworld and Outworld.” And there are two worlds in there, virtual and real, and with the ways things are going in the world I didn’t really need to think too much writing about the differences between the two. So, I’m still working on that.

I actually studied English and creative writing in college and got into a program that I ended up deferring for English literature. Writing has been part of my adult life, but I started writing when I was six because that was the easiest way for me to communicate because I’m neurodivergent, so often talking on the fly doesn’t work for me.

Xiaowei: What were some of the challenges in your project, and how did you work through them?

Eiven: I actually ran up against a massive writer’s block midway through the process of writing the story, and I’ve actually broken through it. I’ve been re-writing massive parts of what I’ve been working on. In addition to that, I was having some health issues, some financial weirdness. But you know, you put one foot in front of the other and just keep going, and thankfully having the support of people, like the CAS cohort, definitely helped with that. Hearing people 6 3 talk about their struggles with their project and their excitement for their projects motivated me to keep moving. The biggest thing I learned with this is that it’s ok to rest, it’s ok to do nothing, it’s okay to fail, to even share that.

Xiaowei: I’m glad to hear it. What’s your wildest dreams for your project?

Eiven: Well, one of the reasons why I called my project a serial story, is because that’s what I want to be. I’d like to have it up on a website where people can sign up and then get a new chapter each week or each interval of time. I haven’t decided whether or not they’re going to be able to view it on the website or just as an email to their inboxes. I want to allow people to get that excitement that I got, when there were serial stories in the newspaper that was on my doorstep every morning. I want to recreate that feeling for people.

Xiaowei: Is there anything you’d like to add for the record?

Eiven: That’s a good question. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate being part of CAS. It was actually because of CAS that I got to work with Raya, with the design team for another project. It was really fun. I was asked to come back for a second round of work but I’m getting surgery next month and taking a break from design work. But it was really cool to be able to be part of this deep experience and have continued experiences afterwards with other folks who were in this program.

Xiaowei: Thank you for your reflections Eiven, enjoy the snow where you are.

Eiven: There’s a lot of snow out there right now. So much!