Blair MacGregor's Blog, page 4
August 23, 2016
The Expectations and Fault Follow-Up
In the comments to Making the Nice-Guy Challenge a Safe One, mrissa and scallywag195 both shared questions and perspectives I wanted to answer in more detail. That “more detail” ended up being much longer than I thought… but here it is!
Questions from mrissa first:
My question is twofold:
1) In what context would his actions have been reasonable in a class/mat setting? In what context is “respond as though someone who is not in pads etc. is the actual attacker” the correct scenario? If this w...
August 18, 2016
Making the Nice-Guy Challenge A Safe One
In 2013, I made a mistake that still affects my physical abilities—everything from Okinawan weapons training to using a screwdriver.
Two students, father and son, began classes at my dojo. The son was an energetic eight-year-old. The father was a six-foot-six retired drill sergeant who’d trained in a similar style about twenty years prior, but who wanted to start again as a white belt in order to train with his son, and had observed enough of my classes to decide he wanted me as an instructor...
August 16, 2016
NEW StoryBundle: The Spirit of the Weird Western!
Personal Note:
OH MY DARLINGS I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS!
Ahem.
Welcome to ourWeird Western Bundle, where wide frontiers, flintlocks, whiskey and revenge meet swords, airships, terraforming, magic, myths, and dragons! You’ll find stories here set in the snows of old Alaska and the heat of contemporary Arizona, post-Civil War San Francisco and post-colonization planets, and places that seem as familiar as any wooded mountain or wind-swept desert… until tigers and dragons and horses that are so...
August 11, 2016
“I Don’t Have Time to Write” Is Perfectly Valid
You’ll not be surprised, my darlings, to hear me admit a few things trigger me to rant on and on. You’ve seen this before, yes? Well, this time it’s the notionthat awriter who says they haven’t time to write in truth doesn’t really want to write.
I don’t want to call out specific folks because the call-out doesn’t matter. Besides, some folks won’t understand the circumstances unless and until they find themselves hip-deep in them. But I do want to offer perspective to those who—right this mom...
July 24, 2016
O, Dreaded Prologue!
Common talk (and just about every critique group and workshop) says a writer should never use a prologue because prologues are so often written poorly. But… first chapters are often written poorly, too, as are fight scenes, descriptions, character backstory, depictions of horses, near-future science, and final chapters. But we do not advise writers to avoid writing them. We instead advise them to learn how to write them well.
So it should be with prologues. After all, not knowing how to write...
July 19, 2016
Playing With Titles
I’m weary of referring to Book Three and Book Four, so I’m kicking around ideas.
I’ve mentioned before I want to keep the same rhythm for Three and Four — NOUN of NOUN.
The frontrunners right now are a word-match of ash, flesh, flame matched with life and strife.
Flame of Strife
Ash of Life
Flesh of Strife
Flame of Life
Ash of Strife
Blood of Life
Flesh of Life
Ash of Strife
… I don’t know. *stares at options*
And I don’t yet have a clue what I’ll do for covers. It’s not as if I can have the...
July 16, 2016
The No-Fun Public Challenge From Strangers
One of my business writing clients is a company headed by twin brothers. Big twin brothers who have worked hands-on construction for almost forty years. On the business side, they’re great clients. On the personal interaction side, they are a great deal of fun. After a recent business lunch that included talk of martial arts, the few-minutes-younger brother asked if I thought I’d “be able to take” the few-minutes-older brother if he tried to attack me. I looked the older brother up and down a...
June 28, 2016
And Now, For the Next Step…
Thank you for buying Breath of Stone! I hope you’re enjoying it. If you’re so inclined to leave a review at the point of purchase, Goodreads, or both, I’d much appreciate it.
The next in the series is solidly underway. There’s some plotting left to do, and a couple nifty ideas popped up to bump up my excitement level, too. One cool aspect is the inclusion of a character created by a Patreon backer who looks to become a key viewpoint character. I do feel as if I have a lovely running start at...
June 22, 2016
Lively Miscellany
Topic the First:
4th Street was a great experience this year–a great and glorious disproving of my usual silly pre-con anxiety of “This time no one will acknowledge my existence.” For me, the most wonderful parts are between and/or triggered by the scheduled events. It’s the conversations about why some authors successfully cross genre lines, examining creeping biases, opening publishing opportunities, determining themes, working with and as a beta reader, and and and… Truly, I LOVE those fre...
June 16, 2016
Breath of Stone Is Up!
Breath of Stone, the second novel of Desert Rising, is available now!
Bone returns to silt and sand,
Blood to salt and water,
Breath to wind and stone,
Soul to sun and storm.
The desert consumes us all.
For an instant, the desert heeded Syrina’s call–sand and fire, wind and stone, igniting and attacking at her command. But the triumph killed ally and enemy alike, leaving her with a handful of survivors, broken expectations, and a dead man’s boots.
There is no time to mourn.
The desert longs t...
