Blair MacGregor's Blog, page 20

Free Short Story

In 2005, I spent over a week at the Writers of the Future workshop in Los Angeles. It was the first time I’d been away from my young son for any length of time.

One of the workshop assignments was to write a story in 24 hours, and the story had to contain certain elements we didn’t know about until the clock started ticking. So I tapped into a version of “write what you know,” and started a story about a mother who missed her child.

And now I’ve put that story up for free.

If You Have Kids, Know Kids, Teach Kids–

Y’all know that, in addition to writing, I teach karate. I teach seminars on other topics as well—wellness, nutrition, failure, resilience, and so forth. I even teach other people how to be better teachers. The one thing I can do with relative ease is stand in front of a bunch of people and tell them how to do stuff in clear and entertaining ways.

But regardless of the teaching I’ve done for more than two decades, I have never seen a presentation that so clearly and simply demonstrates how oft...

Canine Christmas Contentment

May we all have bones large enough to rest our chins upon, and a bounty of fuzzy toys that squeak.

Writing In Life

Advice on writerly success almost always includes exhortations to write daily, to remain focused, to give up other things in order to keep the butt in the chair. There is much truth in those words, but taken to extremes, can become quite dysfunctional.

New writers in particular are vulnerable to the negative judgments wrapped up in those pieces of guidance, worrying if one can be a “real” writer if not behaving as if writing is the most important thing in life.

It’s a tremendously destructive m...

The Odd Feeling About A Much-Viewed Entry

So it’s been a little less than four months since I swallowed my nervousness and made Seeing Is Understanding publicly accessible.

I’ve been blown away by its continued visibility. It’s a rare day that someone doesn’t view it here or over atLiveJournal. Between the two, it’s reached around 4000 views. And just when I think it’s finally trickling off, a sudden influx of viewers will come from a new Facebook or Tumblr link. Now I’m getting visitors from Google+. I have no idea how many people ha...

Frost On the Remnants Of Summer

That’s my outdoor solar lamp. (Frost is covering the little panel on top.) The citronella candle is hiding behind it.

The boy has taken himself off to work, packing Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner. The remaining leftovers are packaged and/or frozen for future meals. The turkey carcass is tucked in the freezer for future soup, and the dogs are mightily disappointed they weren’t allowed to take it outside for themselves. (Raw bones are okay, but cooked bones are not.)

Now I’m settling in with w...

I Do Love This

I spent part of last night’s teaching with a young student frustrated by her inability to do a new kata well when first learning it. Then I spent another part of last night self-examining when and why I’m able to graciously accept criticism and correction, as well as when and why I’m hurt and offended by it — and what years of being publicly, pointedly, and professionally corrected during karate classes and tournaments have done to my attitude toward repetition, failure, and contentment.

Then...

Fighting Isn’t A Failure

True or false: “If you have to fight, you’ve already done something wrong.”

If you’re male, orfemale but educated in self-defense primarily by males, you will say True. If you’re female, aware of the dynamics that most commonly lead to real self-defense situations, you will say False. If you teach self-defense, and want your students to understand those dynamics, you will say, It’s a pile of crap, and believing it could get you killed.

The whole, “If you have to fight” notion has its place. Whe...

Seeing My Own Bias

If we’re paying attention, what we write tells us a great deal about ourselves.

This little dialogue exchange and I went back and forth for two days:

”Besides,” Luke said, “I’d hate to tell the Old Man I let you leave town without even getting a little sparring in.”

“Nothing manipulative about that statement,” she muttered, and narrowed her eyes when he gave a guilty shrug. “First of all, you don’t let me do anything, Sensei Luke. Second, don’t call him the Old Man anymore. I don’t like it. Resp...

Snow and Voice

This morning, we Indiana folk had a bit of early snow.

As you can see, many of our trees are still wearing the last tatters of autumn fashion. It’s an odd thing, seeing golden leaves above fresh snow. It wasn’t much more than a dusting of white, and it disappeared by the afternoon. But it must have startled the trees before it melted because most dumped their remaining leaves in a hurry, leaving us with puddles of color on the snow. Temps overnight will hit the upper teens. By Sunday, temps wi...