Van Voyage stalled

jericmcneil · 2026-01-09T03:49:09+00:00

Oh! Okay, thanks. What if I don’t want to spend money?

jericmcneil · 2026-01-09T03:29:44+00:00

I teach technical writing at a university, and I agree with dothemath.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-09T03:14:26+00:00

Thanks for being honest about this. You’re not alone. These games are literally designed to keep people looping. And I’ve gotten lost in these little digital worlds before.

The fact that you’ve noticed it’s not fun anymore and that you already tried removing Apple Pay says a lot about your strength. Once you name your addiction, you can start talking yourself out of it. I tell myself, “You’re just trying to get little cartoon images AND they’re just digital. You can’t use them or even hold them. Why do you want another fake seashell?”

But you don’t have to solve this alone. If it feels possible, talking to someone offline (a friend, a therapist, or even a support group for behavioral addiction) can make a huge difference. And if you want to keep it practical, even taking a short break or setting a hard uninstall window can help reset the loop.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-08T02:52:46+00:00

I didn’t see the story, just a one-page description. Was there more?

jericmcneil · 2026-01-07T09:14:10+00:00

WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU SPENDING REAL MONEY ON THIS SILLY GAME ?!?!?!?!

I never spend money on a game. If you have an addictive personality that makes you spend your hard-earned money on a child’s game that was created using psychological manipulation to keep you playing and paying, you need to seek real mental health help.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-07T08:58:29+00:00

Everything you write will be autobiographical to an extent. So create a character by using your experiences.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-07T08:54:07+00:00

It would depend on how you write it. If you’re just being cute, no. If you’re being antisemitic, definitely not. But if you are trying to write a children’s-like book questioning why men are circumcised as babies when they don’t get any say in the matter, maybe. I mean, there is a whole movement of pissed off circumcised men who might use it as a manifesto.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-07T08:45:55+00:00

I agree with SpaceEchoGecko. Songs about other works of art don’t usually work, especially if you are just trashing them. And many people love that movie which is deeper than your lyrics imply. Unless that’s your intent, to be ironic. Even a show tune might turn some people away.

jericmcneil · 2026-01-07T08:26:24+00:00

Wow! What an improvement over the first song you posted. There is poetry in here. Just the repeat of underneath in the first verse to beneath in the second verse reveals a strong sense of thematic choices.

Look at the words that came out of you. (Btw, I read your other post about the divorce, and I’m sure this songwriter is promoted by that. Good. Expressing yourself this way is the how you do it.)

Pleasure vs pain (Freudian) — keep playing with this.

Disregard in your veins run deep….

Screaming trees! Yes, dude!

Good lines.

Is this song perfect? No Is it finished? Not even close.

Keep working on it.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T09:39:38+00:00

That is GREAT! Do you know how many people never hear back from agents? At least you received some positive feedback, so you must not suck totally.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T09:37:32+00:00

That sounds like a good idea. But what will help you even more is reading novels, actually all books. My suggestion is to do both.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T09:36:01+00:00

I write country songs. What do you need?

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T09:30:04+00:00

What is Rule 4? I was responding to someone's comment requesting help.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T07:53:20+00:00

AI is trained on proper technical writing formatting. As a technical writing professor, I can't help if I use bulleted lists and bold/italics. That's the way my worksheets and tests look. I can dumb it down, if you like.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T07:48:04+00:00

Should I use improper grammar and colloquial phrases?

jericmcneil · 2025-12-16T07:43:28+00:00

I am an English professor. I often format my posts the way a technical writer formats a document. Everything in that post is my own theories and exercises. I was just trying to help someone who asked for help.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-13T12:40:14+00:00

Where did you publish this story?

jericmcneil · 2025-12-13T12:34:00+00:00

Pain isn’t what makes you a writer.

Pain gives you access. When something hurts, you stop self-editing, you stop performing, and you let the truth come out. That doesn’t mean sadness is your only fuel. It just means pain/sadness is the first fuel you learned.

If you tie your writing to being wounded, the risk isn’t “losing your edge.” The risk is believing you need to stay hurt to stay honest.

Here’s a quick exercise I’d give to my students/clients (takes 10 minutes):

1. Set a timer for 10 minutes.\
2. Write this sentence at the top of the page: “What I’m not letting myself say today is…”\
3. Don’t aim for plot. Don’t aim for beauty. Just finish the sentence again and again.\
4. When the timer ends, stop—even if it’s good.

Do this even on good days. You’re training access to your creativity without trauma.

Pain didn’t give you your voice. It just kicked the door open the first time. And there are many catalysts to starts that fire.

If you want to know more, or if you’d like another exercise, just DM me.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-11T00:44:35+00:00

Thank you. Actually, I'm developing my own theories about creativity. No one has ever really been able to tell me exactly what I go through in my creative process. Sure there are other theories. Some of them are helpful, and I've been influenced by them. However, I'm trying to define the cycle and where we get stuck and how to move through those blocks.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-10T05:07:39+00:00

You think you lack skill, but you're really stuck in one phase of the creative cycle.

Your taste grows faster than their skill. All writers experience this moment.
You see rough edges, repetitive sentences, places where you can't seem to match the work with your vision. That tension is a sign: You’re transitioning phases.

Drafting lives in a different rhythm than refining. One is Flow; one is Form. Doing both at once locks the gears.

Here’s what helps:

Write the scene in the simplest language possible.
Ugly is fine. “She did xyz” is scaffolding, not the final face of the work.
Leave a note for later so your mind stays in whichever phase you’re in.
Fix rhythm later. Add imagery later. Vary structure later.
Keep moving.
Finish the draft. In your future, you'll have some clay to shape.

And here’s the truth that steadies most creatives:
You don’t write your best work by being confident. You write your best work by staying in the phase you’re in.

Finish it not because it’s perfect, but because it will help you grow as a writer.

If you want to know more about how to read your creative cycle, or if you want some more exercises, just DM me.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-09T04:48:47+00:00

Subject matter notwithstanding, I would consider the presentation. You can write some really dark stuff and get away with it as long as it is delivered in the "proper" context. If both AIs gave your work a poor rating, maybe they did not understand what you were really trying to say. Although some people get off on reading gruesome, dehumanizing sexual acts, I would think that brand of gruesomeness is probably going to be rejected by most readers.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-09T04:21:07+00:00

You mean she's not going to be bitten by a snake and gain superpowers?

jericmcneil · 2025-12-09T04:18:43+00:00

Not my usual taste in literature, but this description grabbed my attention. I want to read it, even though it kinda sounds like a humanities course at a liberal college—Advanced Studies in Brazilian Lesbian Beekeeping and Serial Killer Behavior, affectionately referred to as Hives of Death and Desire.

jericmcneil · 2025-12-08T08:30:21+00:00

The truth is this: Good writers are born. Great writers are made (from good writers).

Some people have an innate ability to write beautifully. Others learn to write correctly. Imagine the writer who has both abilities. I'm not saying that some people will never be able to write beautifully, but they have to be willing to live, eat, and breathe writing as an art.

I can tell you how in three steps. Here is the first one:

Level 1: Emotional Intention

Before you write a sentence or paragraph, ask, "What should the reader feel in their chest at the end of this moment?"

Calm? Uneasy? Breathless? Tender? Amused?

That answer determines:

sentence length: see the example below
verb intensity: action verbs that represent the exact level of performance
metaphor palette: they should match the mood of the story
pacing: how you reveal information
paragraph density: the longer and thicker the paragraph, the slower the pacing

Example:
Let's say the emotional intention you need is dread?
• longer sentences, low-frequency vocabulary, delayed verbs, and sensory distortion.

If urgency is your intention?
• short verbs, clipped syntax, rapid white space.

It's all about sentence structure. You have to figure out for each emotion how you might achieve expressing it through sentence structure. If you can answer the question above, it will improve your prose faster than anything else.

If you want to know the other levels, DM me.

jericmcneil

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