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.
Old Sci-Fi Film Still Shines
In a recent post about movie quotes I used the most familiar one from the 1951 classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Though I hadn’t seen the movie in a long time, I still remembered the alien catch-phrase from it: “Klaatu barada nikto.” So I decided the time had...
Let It Go
No, this post is not about a song from Frozen. (Great song, though.) I imagine you all know the old saying that begins, “If you love something, let it go.” Well, that’s exactly what I have just done with a historical novel, titled Stone Woman that—for me—has been a labor of love for thirty-plus years. Let me explain.
Write Well, Not Fast
Okay, this week I’m going to be a curmudgeon—something that I do quite well, actually. There are organizations, conferences, workshops—whatever—that stress sitting down with your laptops on fire and writing novels just as fast as you can. Write 5,000 words over a...
“…The Screaming Of The Lambs”
Fun time again with some memorable movie lines that span quite a few decades. Enjoy! “You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.” Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) has many notable lines in the 1991 Academy...
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,
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...
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