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.
Read & Critique: Hazardous To Your Health?
From the early ’90s to the mid-2000s I facilitated numerous read & critique workshops in my home. At its height I led three of them every week, in addition to the gazillion other things I did to earn a living. As you can imagine, working closely with so many...
Myths And Legends: The Iowa Murder House
In June of 1912, barely two months after the sinking of the Titanic, an unspeakable tragedy in the most unlikely of places took over the headlines for a time. The heinous crime that occurred in Villisca, Iowa was neither myth nor legend; that came afterward—and it...
Fair Or Fowl: A Chicken Tale
This story is about the best day ever for a first-time published author: me. Naturally it took place a long, long time ago: 1978, to be exact. My sword & planet novel, The Prisoner of Reglathium (first in the five-book Dannus series), had just come out. I had an...
“I’m Still Here, Chief”
That line comes from my second-favorite movie of all time, Frequency. Released in 2000, this fantasy/baseball/serial killer/father & son relationship flick, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel, has just about everything I could want in a story. But for my wife...
Ring In 2014 With A Killer Margarita
I’ve had the great pleasure of working with author Michele Scott for about a decade. Besides our work together we are great friends—she calls me her second dad, and having met her father prior to his passing, I consider that an honor. Michele was an unpublished,...
Guilty Pleasures: Lake Placid
Lest anyone think that this 1999 horror/comedy flick takes itself too seriously, they need only consider one of my favorite lines about halfway through. The hilarious Betty White plays old Delores Bickerman, who is spotted happily feeding one of her cows to a...
Opening Lines: Part Trois
I suppose I’m fascinated, if not obsessed, with the bad opening lines that have been submitted to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest over the past thirty years. What the heck, they are so entertaining. Here are some more award-winning gems from the past. Enjoy! His...
Transitions: From Scene To Scene, Part Two
In my last post I promised to share some more transitions from my novel, FREEDOM’S HAND, to show how this necessary device can strengthen a writer’s story. It’s time to pay off. The early scene where Nathan Adler and the Lowe family first arrive at Lager, the desert...
Transitions: From Scene To Scene, Part One
As a writing coach for two centuries or more I have read a lot of transitions from one POV to another, one scene to another, even one past era to a contemporary story, from countless students and clients. Many of them are fine, others not so much. You can confuse the...
Myths And Legends: Cropsey
A long-ago childhood nightmare rose up unbidden from my subconscious recently to cause a few sleepless nights. That nightmare had a name: Cropsey. My memories of this time are a bit disjointed, but here goes. In the late 1950s I joined a Boy Scout troop that held its...
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