Author: P.J. MacLayne

As writers, we have to search to find unique ways to describe everyday life. Sometimes, especially when we write dialogue, we find ourselves resorting to idioms, figures of speech and (gasp) clichés. But where did those idioms originate? That’s what we’re exploring in this week’s blog hop.

I’ve heard the expression “blind as a bat” since I was young. Several of my siblings fit that
description. One brother needed glasses in first grade.

Of course, we now know that bats aren’t blind. Most people know they use a radar-like detection system for hunting, called echolocation. But they can see in daylight, although their vision isn’t as sharp as many other night hunters. They aren’t really blind

So where did the saying originate? Some scholars point to Aristotle. Supposedly he experimented with bats while he was trying to come up with a system to classify living beings. We also attribute the saying “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all” to him as it appeared in his work “Metaphysics.”

There is also research that suggests the saying originated in the seventeenth century. In John’s Clarke’s Paromiologia there is a line that reads “Blind as a bat at noone.”

The expression now is used to describe more that just a person’s vision. It can also be used to describe a person’s unwillingness to recognize the truth. In the current political battle in the Unites States, the followers of both major parties frequesntly accuse their rivals as being blind as bats. However, the words they use may not be so polite.

There are lots of idioms out there enriching our language. I’m looking forward to seeing what our other authors bring to the table. 🙂 To find out, follow the links below!

November 7 – Idioms – figures of speech – For example, what does “in a New York minute” mean, where did it come from, what does it mean to you? (I think this might be a fun way to highlight our different cultures).
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It’s that time of year, when witches and zombies and cute kids in costumes come banging on your door, holding open their bags, hoping for goodies. The rime of year when adults can pretend they aren’t stuck working for a paycheck that gets them through to the next paycheck and they can take on the appearance of their fantasies. The time of year that gets stores between summer sales and Christmas specials.

I remember the days when the kids all wore home-made costumes, ghosts being the simplest and most common.  That was back before the worries about whether the treats being handed out were safe, because of course they were. The chocolate chip cookies the neighbor lady made and wrapped in cellophane were perhaps more sought ofter than the pre-packaged treats from the grocery store. Candy bars were full-size, and no one worried about staples or other foreign objects. Kids could dip into their bags before they got home and the only thing parents needed to do was make sure not too muny goodies got eaten before bedtime. No one ever thought about changing the day trick-or-treating happened just because it fell on a school night. the little kids didn’t get to go, but the big kids shared their loot.

Pumpkins only came in one color and jack-o-lanterns were lit by candles. No one gave a second
thought to the possibility of the flame being dangerous. Everyone was smart enough to keep their distance from them.

But I’ll fill a bowl with selection of pre-wrapped and safety-checked chocolate candy—yes, I give out the “good” stuff—and put it by my door. And when the doorbell rings, I’ll smile and admire the costumes, even if they are store-bought, and feel sad for what they are missing. I’ll wave to the parents standing at the end of the driveway and maybe even drop an extra piece of candy into the bag of the kid who isn’t with friends or siblings. But I’ll keep a lookout for the ones who make a second trip to the doorstep, because that goes against the unwritten rules. They’ll get one of the non-chocolate selections.

When the stream of treat-seekers crawls to the barest of trickles, I’ll turn the porch light off, lock the door and return to whatever book I’m reading. Probably an urban fantasy, because vampires and elves are fitting partners for the rest of the night.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

To find out what the other authors think about the holiday, follow the links below. And feel free to tell me about your memories of Halloween in the comments.

October 31 – Halloween or related. Feelings, traditions, memories.
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Unlike some of the authors on this blog, I don’t write my books with a lesson in mind. I don’t expect to change the world with my stories. My books are written for enjoyment, a chance for readers to get away from real life for awhile. Still, I might slip in a hidden message or two throughout my stories.

If you’ve read my books, you know I write strong female characters. That’s no accident. I’ve seen the changes that have happened in the area of women’s rights over the past fifty years or so, but know the struggle isn’t over. As someone once said, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” but there’s still a long way to go. When I first started writing ages ago, I chose a pseudonym that was non-gender identifiable. Male writers were more respected and in many ways, still are today, so by using a name that was neither male nor female I felt I had a better shot at being published. Now that I’m an Indie Author, I don’t have to worry about that!

But I don’t  believe that being strong means you have to do everything yourself. Friends are important. We are stronger as a group than by ourselves. So my characters and my stories reflect that.

There are other, more subtle, messages of social change woven into the tales I write. I won’t tell you what they are, because I hope you’ll read my books and figure them out for yourself.

What it comes down to is this: my characters frequently reflect my personal beliefs. Not always, but on a regular basis. I think that’s to be expected from most authors.  After all, we write what we know.

To find out what the other authors on this hop have to say, follow the links below. And if you want, leave a comment!

Sidenote: I’ve entered the the Wolves’ Knight cover in a couple of coveer contests. I’m trying to get my cover artist, K.M. Guth, the recognition she deserves. So if you could spare a moment, head over to Cover Contest and give her your support! Thank you!

October 24 – What do you want readers to take away from your work when they read it?
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We’re talking about killing offf our fictional characters on the blog hop this way. And I have a confession to make.

In the first book I wrote, I killed off the main female character at the end of the book. This was a romance, mind you, She and the hero found love as older adults. But she didn’t die of old age, she died in a car crash that harkened back to a scene in the beginning of the book which led to their first meeting.

When I wrote the scene, I cried more than a few tears. I’d fallen in love with her myself. She was a woman who had been hurt more than once in life, and had finally found happiness again. To kill her off seemed true to the story, but it broke my heart.

I rewrote the book later—several times, actually—and eventually gave the female lead a happy ending, because I knew readers would hate me and the original ending. I never released that book—it had some serious plot difficulties I couldn’t fix, so don’t look for it on my author page. 🙂

So I’m not against killing off characters if the story demands it. In Wolves’ Knight, my main character, Tasha, is a warrior at heart. As a warrior and a wolf-shifter, if the situation demands that someone dies, she’ll do what it takes to protect her friends. She’s not necessarily bloodthirsty, just practical. Since it’s true to her nature, I think readers would be disappointed if she didn’t kill someone during the story.

The Oak Grove Mysteries are a different situatio. Mysteries traditionally have a  murder or two. In the first one, The Marquesa’s Necklace, I purposely set about to write a mystery in which no one died. There were a few situations that could have gone bad, but the characters always pulled through. The second book was different—I made the deliberate decision to start that one
off with a body. (By the way, I just put the second book, Her Ladyship’s Ring, on sale for 99¢ for a few days. I’m celebrating completing the first draft of the third book in the series, The Baron’s Cufflinks, And yes, this one has a murder as well.  So if you haven’t read it yet, now is your chance! If you check out the books page here on my blog, you can see where to buy it.  Books Page)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that death is just a natural progression of the human experience. We’re all going to die sooner or later. So to have a character die in one of my stories feels entirely natural to me. Killing of a major character can be heartbreaking but at the same time necessary for the story.

How do you feel when an author kills of a character? Especially one you’ve grown fond of? Tell us in the comments. To find out how the other authors feel about it, follo w the links below.

October 17 – How do you feel about the death of fictional characters? These can be your own or those of other authors. How would you do it? Do you have a criteria for who can die? Would you ever kill off a named character?
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Before I get started on this week’s topic, I want to apologize to anyone who might have missed me the last few weeks. I didn’t go totally off-grid, but my time and internet access were limited. I spent the time with my daughter and grandson, and wanted to savor every minute.

Which segues nicely into this week’s topic—if someone gave you a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

So many choices, so little time! In fact, can I get one of those tickets that you can use unlimited times? For the rest of your life? (They used to sell them!)

Because this is my blog, I can change the rules, Right? So you’re going to get the top three places I would visit.

First one would be right back to visit my daughter. Even though she’s in Florida and I just got back from there and she doesn’t have any electricity yet. Or maybe mostly because she doesn’t have any electricity! She’s got her hands full and I want to be there to help her. Luckily, no damage was done to her house. (The mailbox went missing, the wire that carries electricity to her house is damaged, and a tree in the backyard had to be taken down.) I assume you’ve seen the pictures of storm damage in Florida after the hurricane. She got off lucky compared to some nearby neighborhoods.

(Not my daughter’s home, thankfully)

In a dead heat for # 1 on my list would be a ticket to visit my mother. She’s still in the town where I grew up and since I admit to being an old fart, you can guess how old she is. Although we talk on a regular basis, it’s been too long since I’ve been back to visit her. She’s in good health, thank you, and I have no doubt she’s going to break her family’s record and live past 90. At least I hope so. Still, I need to get back there.

And now for the fantasy trip, # 3 on my list. Ireland. The home of my ancestors and generations of poets and writers. I’ve traveled extensively within the Unites States, but travel outside the country has been limited. Ireland has always topped my list of places I want to go.

I’ve been fascinated by the romantic descriptions of Ireland for years. From the old castles and their ancient lore to the mountains to the people themselves. The country calls to me.

Even back during “The Troubles” my desire to see Ireland didn’t fade. Sure, I plotted the “safe” places to go visit and worried if anyplace was truly safe, but decided I wouldn’t pass up a trip if I could make it happen. To this day, the opportunity hasn’t happened, but Ireland is still at the top of my fantasy list.

To find out where the other authors would like to visit, see the links below. And tell me where you’d want to go in the comments, if you want. 🙂

October 10 – If someone gave you a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
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When I first started writing Wolves’ Pawn, I knew I didn’t want my wolves to be bound by the traditional rules of werewolves. No changing only at with the full moon, I wanted my characters to be able to shift at will. But in order to break the rules, I needed first to understand what the rules were.

Which led me to research the lore of shifters from around the globe. And most particularly, the stories of shifters in Native American legends and beliefs. What I found fascinated me. There is a large variety of shifter tales and not just wolves. I mention several of them in the book.

One of these is the Navajo skinwalker. The skinwalker is a creature of great evil. Legend has it that they are tribal medicine men who, after achieving power, kill a member of their family. They gain the ability to change into the shape of any animal, but primarily favor coyote, fox, crow and wolf. 

Skinwalkers are described in some stories as being able to read human thoughts. They are also said to
be able to mimic the sound of any animal. In some of the stories they are part man part beast, other stories have them changing fully into animal form.

Traditionally, the Navajo are reluctant to talk about skinwalkers, If you’d like to check out some supposedly authentic modern-day stories, here’s a link. Skinwalker Stories. What follows is one of the antecedents which includes many of the standard elements of skinwalker tales. 

This didn’t happen to me but a very close friend of mine. I’ve heard a lot about coyotes and Skinwalkers, and had a weird experience or two with coyotes (creepiest was waking up to my sleeping bag being surrounded in paw prints without ever hearing them during the night) but never anything paranormal so to speak. Patrick’s story, however, kept me from going back to a favorite backcountry secret stash.
He was leaving the area one morning, had been camping there a couple days and said there was a coyote that always seemed to be close by, like in his peripheral vision but never overt. He loaded up his truck and started to drive down the wash out to the fire road. At the end of the wash, he could see the coyote following him. When he pulled onto the road, it was running next to him. Now he was freaked out, so he sped up. He said he was going 35 or so, and it was running along beside him. Definitely not possible. When he looked back, the coyote was running on two legs and was wearing what Patrick said looked like buckskin pants. An instant later, it was a person wearing a coyote fur keeping pace with his truck. When he looked again… It was gone.

We never went back to the grove after that.


Credit to Sean Reveron.

I ended up not using the skinwalker abilities in my book, although I do make reference to the legend. The Navajo aren’t the only tribe with shifter stories, and the shape that shifters take vary from tribe to tribe.

To find out what folktales the other authors are talking about, follow the links below.

Additional rescources

Sept. 12 – Folktales –
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This week on the Blog Hop, we’re talking about Labor Day. To me, it’s always marked the end of summer.

As a kid, school never started until after Labor Day. Although I liked school, it always seemed like summer wasn’t long enough. There were still hills to climb and bikes to ride and nights to spend sitting on the front porch listening to the whippoorwill calling down in the valley and watching the fireflies flash among the willow trees. I feel bad for today’s youth, who start school in the middle of August. It feels like they are getting cheated.

As an adult, I no longer have the free time to spend my summers in pursuit of wild huckleberries or trying to track down the ends of elusive summer rainbows. I have duties and responsibilities and a paycheck to earn, by gum. I must prove that I’m a productive member of society. When I manage to slip away to the mountains on a weekend, no one needs to know that I spent time watching the clouds form pictures while pretending to try to catch a fish.

In the mountains, Fall comes early. Much earlier than the official date of September 22nd. In fact, I’d have to say it has already arrived. There’s been snow in the mountains and we’ve had to turn on the heater several nights. We’re taking bets on when the first snow will fall where we will live. I’ve seen in snow as early as mid-September.

So it’s fair to say that Labor Day really does mark the end of summer. The leaves on the trees are already starting to show a change in color. It’s time to pack away the shorts and throw another blanket on the bed. The extra day off work will be used to cut the grass one more time and do housework that was neglected all summer long.

What does Labor Day mean to you? You can share your thoughts in the comments. And if you click on the links below, you can find out what other authors think.

Sept. 5 – Labor Day – What does it mean to you or how do you celebrate?
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If you’re here from the Sunset on Summer Romance Blog Hop, welcome!  Before I give you a scene from my book Wolves’ Pawn, let me present the book’s description.

Dot McKenzie is a lone wolf-shifter on the run, using everything available to her to stay one step ahead of her pursuers. When she is offered a chance for friendship and safety with the Fairwood pack, she accepts.

  Amazon (Kindle)    Barnes & Noble   iTunes  Kobo   Inktera for mobile

This week we get to highlight our books in the firm of excerpts. I thought it might be fun to get acquainted with Tasha, a minor character in Wolves’ Pawn, who ended up being the hero of her own story in Wolves’ Knight. But first, for those of you who managed to stumble upon my blog and haven’t read Wolves’ Pawn yet, here’s the blurb:

Outside the conference room, a number of men and women with guns stood at alert in the hallways. Dot shivered at the sight, and Gavin placed a comforting hand on the small of her back. One of the women, a tall blonde with two guns strapped across her back, a pistol stuck in the waistband of her pants, and a nasty looking knife strapped to her thigh, jumped out of the chair she’d been sitting in, and approached them.

Tasha got written out of the story about halfway through it. Spoiler alert! No, she didn’t die. But I guess she wasn’t real happy with that, because about a year after Wolves’ Pawn was released, she started bugging me. She wanted me to tell her story. I tried putting her off for awhile, but she wasn’t listening. I finally gave in and Wolves’ Knight was the result.

First, here’s the description of the book:

Tasha Roeper knows what it means to protect your own. So when her friend, Dot Lapahie, CEO of Lapahie Enterprises, suspects that the Free Wolves are under attack, Tasha immediately signs on to lead the investigation and guard Dot.

But Tasha’s not convinced it’s the Free Wolves that are the target. She fears that her own pack—the Fairwood Pack—are the actual quarry and Dot is only a decoy.

The deeper Tasha digs, the more puzzles she uncovers.

Torn between tradition and a changing world, will Tasha risk everything to save a friend—including her own life—when old enemies arise?

In this excerpt, Tasha, after being gone for over a year, is meeting with the Fairwood’s pack arms-master, Elder Fenner.

 “We weren’t sure you’d want to come back. The reports we got were that you fit in well with the pack in Maine. I half-expected you to find your mate.”

So Tasha is responsible for turning Wolves. Pawn, which was intended as a stand-alone book, into a series. Yes, there will be more books in the Free Wolves’ Saga.  If you haven’t bought the books yet, the links follow.

I can’t wait to see what all the other bloggers posted. You can find out by following the links below. And feel free to leave a comment!

Wolves’ Pawn

Amazon

smarturl.it/tyseu6  (Amazon world-wide)

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wolves-pawn-pj-maclayne/1119391168

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id873248397

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/wolves-pawn

Here are the links for Wolves’ Knight, Tasha’s Tale

http://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Knight-Free-Book-ebook/dp/B0199BC6YI/

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/wolves-knight

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wolves-knight-pj-maclayne/1123127673

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1066865102

https://www.createspace.com/5920665

August 29 – Excerpts from Your Novel. This is probably the easiest. It has the added advantage of allowing us, your potential readers, to “sample the brew.” Just write a paragraph to set up the excerpt. Oh, and be sure to link to your book, so we can buy it.

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