ok so my mom attempted suicide earlier this week and i tried to watch her and take care of her myself but i ended up having to take her to a hospital and that’s where she is now and the doctors are saying she’ll be there for two weeks at the least, because she is not moving or eating. Then, the next day after she went to the hospital, my apartment flooded and for 2 days the water has been uncontrollable and as soon as I clean one room of all the water then another room floods. I can send video if you want it as proof. we have one bathroom and the flooding is stemming from that one bathroom and so it is unusable. we literally don’t have a toilet or water or anywhere to go to use the toilet. we have a new landlord who is dragging his feet and won’t call a plumber and i’ve been begging him everyday to fix it for almost a week now and he still says it won’t be until wednesday before he can get someone to fix it. so like I guess I’m supposed to hold going to the bathroom until then. my mom’s hospital bill is going to be due (it was reduced through a low income program but it’s still a LOT) and I need to buy a wet vacuum to clean up this water and most of my clothes are wet and ruined and we need to stay somewhere with a bathroom and my sister and I still need to eat. I’ve already spent what little money I had on stuff to try to clean up the water but that isn’t working anymore.
I can’t be online and active very much because I’m fighting back water constantly. We very much desperately need help. I can’t even deal with all this going on and I haven’t even been able to eat since yesterday morning. Please please please reblog if you can and if you can help thank you so much.
If anyone could help me out with a few dollars for groceries this week, I’d be really grateful. Order a commission or something, I’m quite happy to write anything for you. Unfortunately, my Patreon doesn’t pay out until the 5th October and we’re running out of everything 😦 (and joy of joys, my car insurance is due for renewal next week)
Direct donation via Paypal – dougalberry@hotmail.co.uk
If you can help, thank you and just lemme know if you do want me to write anything. Or, if you don’t want to sign up to Patreon but would like to see everything that’s on there right now, hit me up with a message and we can sort out a direct donation and I’ll email you everything without you having to subscribe x
To make things short, my 7 yr old son and I live with my mother. I cannot work due to the severity of my anxiety and the way it manifests. My mother quit a decent paying job back in January and waited to look for a new job til our savings were nearly dry. She got a new job, but after just a month, her boss cut her hours to 8 per week. That is not a typo. So my mother quit.
She has been unable to find another job since.
We are out of money to the point we can no longer pay bills.
What we’ve got left will be going to a storage unit and my tuition shortfall. Mind you, the tuition bit is $34 every five weeks. The cost of three people eating dinner at Denny’s.
If you would like, after donating, I can do a tarot reading for you. 3 cards, any question.
I’ve gotten a small donation (compared to what I need overall, but I am grateful for every cent!!!) and if you want a reading, send me a message to let me know 🙂 thank you so so so very much!
This is my cat, Professor Minerva McGonagall, or just McGonagall for short. To make things shorter, I’ll cut to the chase: McGonagall has intestinal lymphoma, and without treatment she’ll die.
These are real paintings by the way, physical copies you can hang on your wall or give as gifts with a starting price of $60.00. If you want a painting of your special little doggo, fur-gremlin or danger-noodle or other ridiculously named creature, please look here at https://www.petportraitproject.com
Okay, I know that a good majority of us read fanfic. And AO3 is quite popular, I love that site.
I recently just came across a site on my laptop while I was looking some klance fics to read. I found one and clicked on the link which said it was an AO3 fanfic. Norton Security prevented me from accessing the site because it ‘may be impersonating AO3 to steal your personal or financial information’
If you find a link to a fanfic and it has ‘www.archiveofourown.com’ run for the hills. The true AO3 is .org not .com. It may seem obvious but it’s pretty easy to miss. Just letting all my fellow fanfic addicts out there know that there is a scammer.
I’m trying to tag all the fandoms I’m in so that those people are aware.
What kind of person impersonates a well known fanfic site to steal information. Such a heinous crime. I will admit, this person was pretty smart. All kinds of people read fanfics, especially teenagers. Just think of that and how easy it would be.
Please reblog to every fandom and if you find any other fanfic sites being impersonated please add them to this post. Some of us fanfic readers are close to being adults or are already adults, but there are still twelve year olds and younger who don’t pay attention to things they find on the internet.
@carryoncaptainrogers can you share this? You have more followers than me and computer viruses suck 😭
Considering the amount of writers that follow me, I’m sure at least some of you read off of AO3 so just keep an eye out to make sure the links r what they’re supposed to be. Thanks for spreading the word @sweetie2136!
just saw Incredibles 2 and it was great! however (no spoilers), there’s quite a few scenes with flashing lights and potentially headache-inducing visuals. i didn’t hear about it beforehand, so im sure some others haven’t either.
so i decided it’s more important for me to get food rather than try to pay my phone bill because i literally feel like i’m about to pass out and if i don’t get anything to eat tonight i won’t be able to eat until tomorrow afternoon
if you can help me out at all, please please message me.
if you can’t help, please reblog this so that hopefully one of your followers can help.
i’m sorry that i have to ask
i only need like a few bucks to get dinner if anyone can help please
i’m sorry for reblogging this again i’m just trying to eat today
Nothing wrong with the state of capitalism today nope everything is perfectly fine here no worries
While you are worrying about whether beta readers will steal your ideas, there is a more genuine threat on the horizon.
When offered a publishing contract, please do all your research before you sign. There are a number of fakes and scammers out there, as well as good-intentioned amateurs that don’t know how to get your work to a wide audience. I won’t tell the heartbreaking stories here – there are too many.
Being published badly is worse than being never published.
It can destroy your career and your dreams.
The quick check is to google the publishing house name + scam or warning.
But, to be sure, check with these places first. They aren’t infallible (nothing is) but they can help you protect yourself. They are written and maintained by expereinced writers, editors, publishers and legal folks.
This is really important, so if you are a writer or have writer friends, or you are a writing blog, please reblog it.
Just to let you know, PublishAmerica changed their name to America Star Books.
HEAD’S UP, WRITER TYPES: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PSA!
Also applies to many so-called freelance sites that are just content mills, and may not pay unless your work is used, even if the contract seems designed otherwise.
Listen, reading these is like legit reading horror stories. When it comes to publishing your writing, always, always, ALWAYS do your research. Not only will it help you avoid scams, but it will also be likely to help you land a much better fit for an agent/publisher/whatever. Knowing more is never going to hurt.
Omg!!! Thanks for the warning! Writers— reblog!
I’ve heard stories like this that are scarier than horror stories. This is an all time worst nightmare for a writer. Everyone reblog and make sure you keep your work safe!
Reblogging again for the links. Also check pred-ed.com and the Absolute Write forum. Then google Publisher’s name + scam and see what comes up. Do NOT use the BBB ratings, they are wholly unsuitable for rating publishers and regularly give A ratings to well-known publishing scams. You can also read my own post on publishing scams, have a link on the left of my blog ( can’t link here, I’m on mobile, sorry).
Equally important to know is that you can SELF-PUBLISH through a number of platforms these days. @ean-amhran and I used Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing to publish both of our books. No editors, no contracts, no finagling with publishers who want to change your materials. Just direct-to-market material.
(Granted, it means you’ve got to do a LOT more work yourself with editing and formatting and cover art, but it’s worth it to miss the headache of trying to bargain with publishing houses or avoid scams.)
Be vigilant, fellow writers!
If you choose to self publish then HAVE A PLAN and think things through.
And hire an editor. Please, for the love of all that is holy, hire an editor. It’s expensive, but you will get a better book out, a better reputation…
If you’re going to publish electronically, make sure you also get someone who can LAY AN EBOOK OUT PROPERLY.
I have spent money on Kindle books, many of them reprints of older works, whose formatting is so messed up as to render them unreadable.
I actually recommend using the Smashwords Style Guide even if you don’t use Smashwords.
It lays out how to neatly format an e-book in a wonderful step by step format, and you can get it free from Smashwords. Just leave off the couple of things that are (very obviously) Smashwords specific.
If you can’t stand dealing with the meticulous detail, then by all means hire somebody, but most people can learn to format an ebook correctly and once you’ve done it a couple of times it takes about an hour tops.
Because the redirects aren’t working for me, I’m going to assume others might have trouble with these links, so for those who need it the URL for the website to Writer Beware is:
These are not publishers’ guilds, notice; you sometimes see scammers trying to defend themselves against Writer Beware exposes by claiming that they’re “small press” or “indie” and Big Publishing is somehow out to get them – but all of those guilds are run by and for writers, to help support them and represent them in the field. It is the closest writers have to having unions, and there’s no direct competition between them (you could literally be an in any of those guilds are the same time as each other, in addition to others, and I believe a number of authors are).
Writer Beware is a wonderful resource, and I highly recommend it. It’s both a good general guide to the scams people run/red flags to watch out for (such as giving up your copyright entirely as opposed to specific rights, or being charged to publish something or have it edited, when they’re trying to act like they’re a “normal” publisher), and a frequently-updated list of the latest specific known scammers, both in “fake agents” and fake/scammy publishers categories. (The company formerly known as Publish America is one of the most famous and egregious cases, but by far not the only one)
Additionally, for SF and fantasy writers, the SFWA’s own list of qualifying markets that one can be published in as a prerequisite to be able to get into their guild (remember, it IS a profession-based guild), is a great guide to normal markets for those genres that have standard contracts that aren’t abusive or scammy, and their guidelines include some of the industry-standard minimums for “per word” etc rates, so even if some new magazine market isn’t on their list, you can tell if it’s suspiciously far outside the usual per-word or whatnot standards. (It’s likely the guidelines for Mystery Writers of America etc also would be useful in that vein)
Even if you’re unpublished or don’t want to join their guild, they’re a wonderful group and resource, and I highly recommend their site and Writer Beware in particular!
The other sites mentioned above, such as “Preditors and Editors” should be still valid if you Google them, and are often rec’d by Writer Beware, but Writer Beware is the one I’m most familiar with. 🙂
Also, you should never have to pay an agent or anyone a “reading fee”! DO NOT PAY PEOPLE TO READ YOUR WORK!!! Run away from so-called agents that charge a reading fee! They are considered unethical in their own industry!
Also related to agents: Should you go this route and seek one, DO NOT PAY ONE DIME TO THEM upfront! A real agent only gets paid when he sells your book to a publisher! The average cut is about 10-15% of the first sale profits, if I remember right, with cuts of film and other rights maybe being more, when sold. At most, writers should only be responsible for the costs of phone calls and postage.
The Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity education program, aka SOGI, would introduce gender identity & sexual orientation into the British Columbian curriculum. A lot of bigots are against this, because fuck queer youth I guess. Right now the poll is 80% no–80% of people who voted think queer youth don’t matter and don’t deserve to be recognized in schools.
There were even anti-SOGI protests in the streets of Vancouver. It may just be an internet poll, but people will see this.
Tumblr, I’ve seen you pull off some pretty cool shit when it comes to these kinds of internet polls in the past. Help a local trans man out?
are you loki, god of knives? 🗡🙄 
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