MISSING: 8 Books, Inventory Management Skills

This tweet passed through my Twitter feed this morning:

The Importance of Being (Slightly) Arrogant — It Makes You a Better Writer http://t.co/KfhFeJ8gwM Guest column via @donnagambale
— Writer’s Digest (@WritersDigest) November 18, 2013

I read it, and my first thought was, “Yup. That sounds about right.” Far be it from me, a writer, to pile on to the stereotype of the arrogant writer, but let’s be honest. None of us writers would be writers if we didn’t feel like the insides of our brains were so interesting that everyone would benefit if we transcribed our thoughts and then charged people money to view them. So…right. I wouldn’t say I, or most writers, suffer from a lack of self-confidence.

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MacBooks, horror movies and the serenity to accept all of the things or whatever

Watching horror movies, like taking shots, is something I realized in my early 20s that I hated and didn’t ever have to do again if I didn’t want to. So I’m coming up blank when trying to think of the name of a movie in which the main characters are supposed to die in a massive plane explosion, but somehow get out of it, but then death chases them around and tries to reclaim them.

Now that I think about it, this may have been the very movie that made me say, “Nope. I’m not doing these anymore. Horrifying death isn’t entertaining to me,” so that’s probably why I’ve both blocked out the details and think about it fairly frequently. I bring it up now because…sigh…a death my MacBook escaped two years ago has come to caught up with it. That’s right. I just Final Destinationed my computer. (OK, I Googled it.)

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Tiny hypocrisies and better haircuts

Recently, I wrote about the phenomenon of writers complaining about not being paid for their work by saying if you’re a professional writer, producing professional-grade work, you’ll get paid work. Because we do, actually, live in a world where vocational aptitude can and will be rewarded (most of the time). Most people will brains prefer the work of professionals, even when a service technically could be done by an amateur.

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