Blair MacGregor's Blog

Whenever someone—anyone!—comes around with the writerly advice along the lines of, “Your worldbuilding must be consistent!  Unchanging!  Immutable!” I truly want to wince.  When justification of that advice is couched as a reflection of the “Real World,” my wince turns into a grimace.  Sometimes an eye-roll.  On rare occasions, I might indulge in an under-the-breath “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

I’m not to the point of shouting about it.  Not quite yet, though I’m getting close.  Y’see, I believe th...

Or rather, “The vacation I took to to celebrate being about a year out from the car accident and concussion that pretty much reset my life.”

A core lesson from the accident: I needed to carry decent health insurance, and “decent” tended to fall outside of “what I can afford as a freelancer.”  Truly, at the scene of the accident, I should have been taken to the hospital right away.  I feared the cost more than I feared the health consequences of my brain rattling around in my skull, and I didn...

My goodness, it’s been a long time, hasn’t time?

The short of the long of it is this:

I’m still finishing out the last of the brain and body recovery from the accident, with the lingering sense of knowing that, while I’m doing marvelously better, there are still things I’m a little slow on. Stalling out when running a kata I’ve known for over a dozen years, having to make a conscious effort to un-hunch my right shoulder because the muscles keeps re-knotting itself, needing to keep far more de...

[image error]If you follow me on different platforms–okay, primarily Twitter, truth told–you’ll know I was in a car accident about a week ago.  At first, I considered myself unhurt, applying the rather incomplete and stupid standard of, “No bleeding, no broken bones, able to walk–I’m good.”  Then I spent the night with an increasing painful headache, dropping off to sleep whether I wanted to or not, and awakening over and over with room-spinning nausea.  Word mix-ups, wonky scent and taste perception, and...

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I learned a new word recently: parallax. It has become one of my favorites.

Parallax is the visual difference we perceive in an object’s position when we change our own position in relation to the stationary object. It’s why we get the most accurate reading from a standard dial when we view it directly. Tilt your head from one side to the other, or close one eye and then the other, and the dial’s needle will appear to give you a di...

I gave my first keynote presentation when I was eighteen. Since then, I’ve come up against dang near every minor and moderate issue a presenter might encounter.

As writers, panels, conferences, readings, classes and workshops are likely to come our way. I’m not going to speak here about choosing your topic or material, or outlining and establishing a talk or class (but will later, if folks are interested!). Instead, we’re going to chat about… problems.[image error]

No matter how fantastic the story you’ll...

This article originally appeared for patrons only at Patreon .

1. Strength Is Overrated  

Bulked-up muscular strength, that is. Big biceps will help you choke someone out, but don’t do as much for straight-on strikes as the coordination of muscles with tendons and ligaments and overall body alignment. And if the muscles were strengthened with isolation exercises, chances are the result will be reduced mobility, shortened reach and increased risk of joint injury.

There are indeed a few athletes...

I did not intend to let our little corner here lapse into silence for nearly three months.  The reasons are mostly boring–having to do on one hand with a job possibility that did not come to pass, and on the other hand with freelance projects that indeed came to pass (but on an uncomfortably tight deadline for even a fast writer) at the same time extensive home remodeling kicked into high gear.

I also did not intend for the first post in forever to be on the topic of grief.  I would have pref...

So my son and I saw Logan a couple nights ago, and I mentioned on Twitter that I nearly walked out about ten minutes in. What I didn’t add was that I wanted to walk out and throw up. Neither the urge to walk nor the queasiness happened because the film did anything wrong for me. Instead, it was because the film depicted something so incredibly well, I took the gut punch before I even knew it was coming.

So this is not a review. It’s a reaction. Mild spoilers shall follow in this post, and mig...

I could go on and on and on about the differences between Colorado living and Indiana living.  The landscape, the diversity, the climate, the opportunities…

But I’m going to tell you about the deer.

Indiana has white-tailed deer.  Colorado has mule deer.  I could go on about differences in their mass and height, but the real difference is in attitude.

White-tailed deer are anxiety ridden things, truly.

If they’re browsing at the side of the road and a car comes by, they panic and bolt.  They...