: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 16: “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (airdate: Tuesday, February 10, 1998): Part 3 of 3

30:01 – THE END Previously on \m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/ . . . Part 1 & Part 2 Xander Harris wants Amy Madison to cast a love spell on Cordelia Chase, who broke up with Xander at the Bronze’s Valentine’s Day dance. Amy needs something personal that belongs to Cordelia, so Xander asks for the return of […]

Shoes I Have Known (Introspection is Good for Your Soles)

I’ll freely admit—up front—that the following statement might be exaggerated for effect. Slightly. For most of my first sixteen years, I logged more hours barefoot than I ever did in shoes. This was in South Carolina, I should add. And, well, I had a regional stereotype to maintain. None of us were sneakerheads back then. […]

Welcome, Bots!

I’m happy that the bots like to read my posts, but couldn’t they “like” just a few of them?

Comic Art: Spotlight on Drew Struzan

Oh, I can hear the chorus of complaints about this post already. Drew Struzan isn’t famous for comic books or comic strips. In fact, while he did illustration work for publications and advertising that overlapped with comic and pop culture circles, he never contributed to the sequential storytelling found in comics. What he did provide […]

Firewater’s Vignette #4: Racist Road Trip

When I volunteered to help open a new Target store about twenty years ago—as a seasoned logistics manager, no less—I met Tony. He was assigned as the hardlines manager. For those who don’t speak fluent Target (especially vintage Target from two decades ago), here’s how the store hierarchy worked back then. At the top, you […]

“Onboarding,” by Firewater — a short story

From a distance, Todd Vesprin—the regional HR director for Rhine-Mart—looked every inch the thin white duke: ramrod posture, tailored suit, gravity-defying blond quiff, and the petroleum smile of a game show host. But as John Downey, the new general manager of Store #1030, crossed the parking lot, his first impression shifted. Vesprin had the hair, […]

A Model of My Mind in My House (The Library Closet)

this is not my library closet—well, not exactly I’ve always believed that a writer’s library is a reflection of the writer—almost a visual model of the writer’s mind. This belief isn’t based on any deep research or study; it’s just one of those things you hear somewhere and think, Yeah, that sounds about right. If […]

Looking Forward (February 2026): First Brain Inventory Since 2025

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for February 2026. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

\m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 16: “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (airdate: Tuesday, February 10, 1998): Part 2 of 3

15:01 – 30:00 Previously on \m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/ . . . Part 1 & Part 3 The students of Sunnydale High School are all pumped up about the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance at the Bronze. Willow Rosenberg is enjoying telling everybody that her boyfriend—Daniel “Oz” Osbourne—is playing in the band for the party. We find out […]

In the Writers Room (with Firewater) #18: Kill ‘Em All on the Page (where to dig up your fictional villains)

My relationship with my blood family is complicated. I don’t think I’m unique in that. Most of us carry some mixture of love, resentment, and bewilderment when we think about where we came from. And if you’re a writer, all that baggage has to go somewhere. For me, it went straight into my villains. My […]

Writing Novel #5: work-in-progress update

This isn’t a new idea. That’s probably the first thing worth saying. I believe I got about a hundred pages into this novel in the early 1990s, back when I was still writing on an electric typewriter. That was after I’d leveled up from the manual Remington I used in college, which made me feel, […]

10-List: Movies Firewater Watched on TCM (since October 2025)

Between October 2025 and January 2026, I watched the following movies on Turner Classic Movies. Dark Passage (1947) Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Yeah, that’s right. You heard me. I liked this movie, although my head canon gives it an entirely different ending that I’ve decided I may use in my own fiction. You’ve seen […]

Another Trilogy? Seriously?

I just learned that Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as president of Lucasfilm, a job she’s held since Disney bought Star Wars back in 2012. Dave Filoni, a name most fans recognize, is being promoted to president and chief creative officer. Lynwen Brennan, a name I don’t recognize at all, will serve as co-president handling […]

Comic Art: Spotlight on Jim Aparo

From junior high onward, I was a Marvel Comics guy. When I began attending South Junior High, I found myself in classes with total strangers. Most of my best friends from grammar school weren’t there, so I had to start over. My new crowd was heavy into Marvel—Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men. And, naturally, I followed […]

Firewater’s Vignette #3: Write What You Know

He had been staring at the blank page for hours, and the blank page had begun to stare back. Everyone says write what you know. The problem was, the only thing he knew at the moment was that he couldn’t write. His chest felt heavy, as though something heavy sat on him. His thoughts were […]

\m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 16: “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (airdate: Tuesday, February 10, 1998): Part 1 of 3

00:00 – 15:00 Part 2 & Part 3 On this day in history . . . The #1 R&B song in the US is “Nice and Slow,” by Usher. I’m grooving to it as I type these words. “Sex and Candy,” by Marcy Playground, still rules the Alternative charts. I’ll groove to that in just […]

How I Spent New Year’s Abroad

Well… not that much abroad. Over the New Year’s holiday, my wife and I traveled to the resort city of Playa del Carmen, in the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo. We were there for five days with my baby brother, his wife, and their eight-year-old daughter, with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day […]

10-List: Quotidian Quotes: The Ouroboros 2: Electric Boogaloo (more cannibalized quotes from the Firewater Files)

I’m easily sucked in by clickbait slideshows that showcase quotes from both famous people and people I’ve never heard of. Sometimes, seeing a quote—completely removed from context—makes it seem somehow profound, with deep meaning and emotion. Other times, such a quote just makes you scratch your head and say, “Huh?” The following 10-List are all […]

The Good Place: Season 1 — a review

Here’s how it happened. Sharon, my wife, began watching this series several years ago. Since the series ran from 2016 to 2020, we know—for a fact—that it wasn’t before then. But I’m thinking it was after 2020, and probably after all four seasons were available on one streaming platform or another. I do know that […]

10-List: 2025 Funeral March

The older I get, the more dead people I know. That’s not an original quote but I’m unable to give it proper attribution. If you want to quote it and give me credit, that’s okay. If you want to make everyone believe that it’s an original quote from you, that’s okay, too. Credit gets stolen […]

“Burying the Future,” by Firewater — a short story

Jim Hilliard left the lab early because his head felt wrong—foggy and too loud, like someone’s radio had been tuned between stations. He told himself it was the flu coming on. His crew had been working third shift to minimize the influence of background noise, temperature fluctuations and even vibrations from daytime traffic on their […]

In the Writers Room (with Firewater) #17: Borrowing King’s Toolbox

This is my sneaky little way of dropping a quick review of Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000). King’s book is part memoir, part how-to, and part “holy crap, he survived a drunk driver.” He takes you from his scrappy, dirt-poor childhood to the Carrie grind, then the fame explosion—sprinkled with […]

\m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 15: “Phases” (airdate: Tuesday, January 27, 1998): Part 3 of 3

30:01 – The End Previously on \m/15-Minute Hellmouth\m/ . . . Part 1 & Part 2 On the night of the full moon, while Buffy Summers and her Watcher, Rupert Giles, are out hunting for the werewolf that terrorized neighborhood pets the previous night, a student named Theresa was walking home in the dark, carrying […]

The Future is Still Being Written (setting out on a new journey after completing the last)

On the day I began writing this sentence—Saturday, December 13, 2025—I finished the rewrites of my speculative fiction novel Arcadia Lake. The manuscript now stands at 426 pages, just over 95,700 words. When I started the rewrites, my goal was to get the book down to 94,000 words. I didn’t quite hit that number, but […]

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