InterNutter

Indie writer seeks audience with an audience. Paying customers welcome. [pronouns: ze/hir] Daily free stories happen because it is an excellent counter to Writers' Block.

Burpengary East http://www.cmweller.com 12540 posts

I Need a Break

Financial, emotional, whatever. No matter what relief I need, the only break I'm ever offered is skeletal.

We're overspending. And my finances mount up to a quarter of Beloved's income. The remainder of that does not cover the bills. And to put things into perspective, I can't just go out and flip burgers. I'm forty-five. I have few marketable skills. I'm not going to be preferred over someone else who can work for less, for longer.

Should I try to re-enter the workforce? Should I try harder to sell my books?

I'm already set up for disappointment. My entire life to date has been one gigantic disappointment. Try my heart out. Fail anyway. Work and work and work and fail.

At least my death would be one lump sum payment and no more drain on anyone else. But I can't think like that. I'd just shift the burdens I carry around to someone else who probably can't handle it anyway.

If there is a plus side, my Beloved finally understands why I was so stressed out about income and outgoing expenditure, way, way back when we were first attempting to have a home. And I don't even know if they understand that this is what I've been stressing about for decades together.

Meanwhile, I have the wherewithal to get myself nice things, but I can't help thinking how my frugal habits would rub our economic paucity in my Beloved's face. So. In the meantime... I am the sole food-getter.

Starting next week, it'll be stew for a while until I wrangle the exact expenditures and so forth.

And I may or may not run for PM in the future. Which might be interesting but heartbreaking to do. I'll stand for all the counter-intuitive shit. Minimum Basic Income. Legalise (and professionally produce) all the drugs. Get rid of the toxic shit in there and have an amnesty where the addicts get help instead of firkin criminalised. Fuck gun laws. We need to tax the bullets. Actual reform programs for criminals so that they don't suffer recidivism. Alternative Energies for the win. Robin Hood Tax. Deem rich people on their offshore holdings. Bring back fucking Mutton. Only let Australian Companies operate in Australian turf. And they pay Australian taxes. Fund some actual fucking scientific studies to look at ALL the diets and figure out what the fuck's going on with human bodies.

I'd be up against the wall before I finished my oath of office.

Or just a political joke on the level of Vermin Supreme.

They've elected political jokes before. That's how the Muppet got in.

Challenge #01873-E049: Infestation Reformation

Picture a Fallout style after-the-bombs postapocalyptic world, but we humans are extinct. Nothing but ruined buildings, leftover wreckage, wandering mutants of assorted types, and abandoned hoards of supplies like armor, food, tools, and weapons...

Meanwhile, on the other side of reality, the stereotype sword-n-sorcery fantasy realm gets so sick and tired of goblins - stupid, obnoxious, violent, vulgar little wretches that breed like rats on speed and can bounce back from just about anything short of incineration or wholesale dismemberment - that

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LATE!

I should have posted my Patreon stuff yesterday, but the distraction of being a lazy goldbrick got in my way. So I made myself post it this morning.

Yay.

And I can't help thinking that I skipped a week. Can't fathom how or when that happened. Nobody talks to me about this stuff. Even MeMum has stopped bothering me about the tardy stuff.

Autumn has more or less officially begun. Translated - I have put on Jeans for the first time this

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Challenge #01872-E048: Aftermath

[Person 1 wakes up] “Ugh... what happened?”

[Person 2] “Do you want me to start before or after you started a civil war?” -- TheDragonsFlame

There was a wild party going on. But there had been a wild party going on when he passed out. The headache said it had been more than a while, but the noise level said it hadn't been that long. Hwell reached for the electrolyte solution that Ax'and'l had thoughtfully set out, and left the covered bacon

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Okay. I can do this.

Ever had one of those days when inertia feels like the better option?

I'm feeling the thrall of soft pillows and warm blankets. And maybe a big burly bloke named Bruce to straighten my spine out for a change. And his "good pal" Sven to work the knots outta my muscles.

...ah, fantasy...

Ahem.

What I want to do and what I must do are two different things. Despite the fact that lounging around all day and scrolling through Tumblr is way

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Challenge #01871-E047: Know When to Walk Away

Hello! I would find it immensely amusing if you would write a fic where Maxim (Girl Genius) and/or any of the Jägers run into Taako (TAZ) and strike up a conversation about hats. Your writing is great and I am highly impressed with how much you manage to write. Thanks for listening! :) -- HowShouldIKnow

Never mind how they got there. The meeting should have been brief. It should have resulted in one of them knowing something the other had to bargain

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Onwards, ever onwards.

My 2nd-hand lappy has run out of disk space. Again. None of the adjustments I've made are having an effect. I still can't get Beloved to decide which programs on there are superfluous to their needs for the thing, if any actually exist.

In nine days, I should have the Steem needed to have some bitcoins to turn into cashola to buy my very own compy and laptop.

And I STILL can't verify my gorram bank account on the transfer system as

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Challenge #01870-E046: Top Secret Womens' Business

"Prime Minister, we have little time. We must awaken Atlantis..." the tall dark-skinned woman said, crisp business suit and dark glasses lending an air of authority that even the PM felt humbled by.

"Atlantis? Like the myth of the wondrous Greek city that sunk into the sea?"

"Greek? Sank? Mere misdirecting fiction," she replied. "ATLANTIS as in the Advanced Terran Laser And Nuclear Threat Incapacitation System."

"The what? Is ... is this... thing... in Australia?"

"No, Prime Minister. It is Australia. I'll explain

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...focus? What focus?

I was having a lovely lie-in this morning and realised -hey- I should probably do that instant story thing.

Two hours later and I'm reading other people's fanfics and getting even more ideas for stories that I shouldn't be writing because I still have these other ones I'm working on and -- wow, that's a real pretty headcannon they have going there...

Whoops.

I guess I'd rather be fanficcing today. Or just blowing the entire day off and lounging around and not

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Challenge #01869-E045: Say What You Mean

Trades and hobbies have specialist language often the same word can mean completely different things. "Galley", a type of ship, a pre-publishing book or article, a place where Artwork is displayed. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Nonny, you have confused "galley" with "gallery" there]

From the Dictionary of Confusing Slang on the free infonet:

Face: (n)
1. Application of stage makeup for a performance (theatrical)
2. Application of makeup for business (civilian human female, pre-Shattering)
3. Painting on protective boards to make a

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Back to what passes for normal

You're all caught up, and my archives are a little skewiff, but every Instant I've written is officially UP on this site. Yay.

It's not in chronological order any more, but whatever. It's UP. And I'm done with that. And I'm sincerely hoping that the return to the old pattern doesn't flakk things up as badly as the transfer to the new pattern did.

But I know me. I like having patterns of behaviour. Going back can be just as jarring as

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Challenge #01868-E044: The Stepford House

As early 20th century houses go, it was fine. Neat, tidy, clean, owners polite to their black maid and cleaner and paid them well, children loved by their parents, and parents whom loved their children.

So WHY did it reek like a stinking dungeon in a necromancers castle? The Doctor lasted 10 seconds before leaping in with both boots. -- Anon Guest

It was almost a cliché, really. Lost traveller, wicked storm. Can't stay out in this mess. Would it be too

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Challenge #01863-E039: Reformation Process

Meanwhile, at a Top Secret Government Organization…

Agent: “…and that, fortunately, was the moment the device overloaded and self-destructed. Division 6’s damage-control team was able to convince the public it was just a ignited leak from a gas line triggered by a malfunctioning industrial diesel generator.”

Chief: “Excellent; the last thing we could’ve been able to handle was that chemical getting to the water supply. Ah, our refreshments are ready. Thank you, Lav’der.”

Agent: “Hmph. I’ll pass. God

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Challenge #01862-E038: Trust Yourself

She left a message for her younger self to read. -- SongSpired

Time travel was a bitch. Sorting out the mistakes of life retroactively was never a fun thing. Making sure she would pay attention to her own warnings to herself had been the work of several journeys. And multiple encounters. She could not talk to herself. Both brains shut down for that sort of thing. Leaving notes, however, was perfect.

Her teenaged self was asleep in bed. Sleeping the sleep of

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Wouldn't you know it?

I just got into the new rhythm and it's almost over. Will be over today, actually.

And then I can fluff up the old rhythm because I'm that big of a doofus. You just watch.

I have been having a lot of fun with my WIPs. Both professional and non. Extracting the evil potential out of the professional one and extracting the humour potential out of the non-professional one.

Either way, I'm cackling all day long, today.

Oh, I wish I could

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