Swords, Specters, & Stuff
Welcome to My World
I started this blog in January 2012 for one simple reason: I love to write. I named it “Swords, Specters, & Stuff” because I especially love to write about writing, about books and movies in my favorite genres, about authors that mean a great deal to me. But there’s more to it than that, which is why I included “Stuff” in the title. It is “Stuff” that gives me carte blanche to write about anything, which is why you’ll see stories about special trips to Cooperstown, Sedona, and other places; about getting older; about baseball; about the otherworldly way in which I met my soul mate; about the loss of good friends, and so much more. Enjoy! And feel free to leave a comment.
Guest Post: Circle Of Reign
Hello, my name is Writer Mike, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book. (Sorry Jacob, I couldn’t resist.) I must say, Jacob Cooper’s epic fantasy novel, Circle of Reign, IS quite amazing,
Short And Sweet II
Just got back from a short—but real sweet—trip to Idyllwild, a town over a mile high in Southern California’s imposing San Jacinto Mountains. Not that I ever need an excuse to go there, but in this case we made the trip to celebrate a significant birthday for my...
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
My dad, Murray Sirota, passed away at age fifty-nine in 1969, when I was just a mere slip of a lad—more or less. We knew it would happen; a couple of months earlier he’d been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, the end result of a lifetime of cigarette smoking, and...
Guest Post: The Hammer Of Witches
There is a disturbing true story behind the events depicted in The Hammer of Witches, a newly published historical novel by Basque scholar and good friend, Begoña Echeverria, one of my long-time writers. After a brief synopsis, I’ll have Begoña tell that story. In...
Guilty Pleasures: Godzilla (1998)
I watched Godzilla (2014) last week. Perhaps I’ll write about it another time. Quick assessment: not bad, kind of dark—literally and figuratively. A lot of exposition long before you ever see either Godzilla or a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). But...
“I’m Your Number One Fan”
That line, and Stephen King’s Misery—which I wrote about last week—are apparently inseparable. In the hope of finding some more material I entered “writers’ number one fans” into a search engine, and guess what: the first four links that show up are for Misery and...
Films About Writers: Misery
Authors, athletes, actors—heck, just about everyone in the public eye—all have a Number One Fan. Or two. Or a thousand. Even I had some Number One Fans back in the day. Sounds like an interesting topic for a post—which will appear next week. Today we’ll talk about...
A Head Case?
“Hi, I’m Mike, and I’m a head case.” Okay, I hope that didn’t prompt you to counter with the typical twelve-step response, because if it did, I gotta worry about you. 🙂 Tell the truth, we’re probably all head cases when it comes to one thing or another—something...
Common Writing Mistakes
In my centuries of evaluating and editing manuscripts I’ve probably been through five million of ’em. (Wait, I’m not supposed to exaggerate; it’s only one million.) With that large a sample size it’s clear that many of the same mistakes plague writers, whether they’re...
Guilty Pleasures: Conan The Destroyer
Over two years ago I wrote a “Guilty Pleasures” post for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first screen romp as Conan the Barbarian in 1982. Since that time this particular post has received more views than any of the others I’ve done on my blog. Must be a lot of Conan—or...
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