Open Book - P.J. MacLayne

When I Was A Child #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne December 12, 2021 December 12, 2021 Open Book

Dec 13 2021

How did you picture your life as a kid versus how it turned out so far?

When I was a child, I measured the world in a different way. How high could I climb up the oak tree? How far up the hill could I pedal my bike? How far could I go in the back pasture before I lost sight of the top of the willow trees beside the house?

I remember standing in the kitchen when I was 8 or 10, trying to figure out how old I would be in the year 2000. Couldn’t make the math work. Decided it didn’t matter; I’d probably be dead by then.

What I wanted to be when I grew up changed on a regularly. I had a short-lived fantasy of being a hermit. Then I was going to be a librarian or forest ranger. It upset my high school teachers that I had no desire to get into one of the science or math fields.

It turns out that the field I eventually excelled in didn’t exist at that time. Computers took up entire rooms. I discovered my passion for ones that fit under the desk. Now we hold them in the palms of our hands and call them phones. I can see and talk to my 93-year-old mother with a simple device that allows her to bush one button to communicate with her children and grandchildren across the country. We are living in the age of science fiction.

When I was a teenager, I had an accident on my bicycle and spent nearly a week in the hospital. One of my injuries involved my left ear. A few years ago, I was undergoing a series of test for vertigo, and the technician asked about my inner ear injury. I explained it to him, and he asked “Didn’t they do an MRI?” I smiled and said “MRIs didn’t exist back then.” We are living in the age of science fiction.

Once upon a time, authors laboriously wrote their books out by hand or typed them on a typewriter. Then they repeated the process to make corrections. Once finished , they stuffed the final copies into oversized manila envelopes or boxes to mail off to an agent or a company’s slush pile. Now they can see their edits on a screen and never have to touch white-out or correction tape. Instead of mailing them, the documents can go electronically to their destination. We are living in the age of science fiction, and there’s no going back.

I wouldn’t want to, either. Go back, that is. It’s not all roses and sunshine, but I have too many friends and family members who wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the advances in science and medicine. Maybe I wouldn’t have made it to the year 2000 if it weren’t for the changes. My life doesn’t resemble what I expected as a kid, and I’m good with that.

What about you, reader? Has your life turned out differently from what you expected? Tell us about it in the comments. And to see how the other authors on this loop feel, follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe!

Dec 13 2021

How did you picture your life as a kid versus how it turned out so far?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

Collaboration in Writing #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne December 5, 2021 December 5, 2021 Open Book

Dec 6, 2021

Have you ever written fanfiction or a story that was part of some else’s ‘world’? How does it differ from writing a story entirely on your own?

Does writing fanfiction about your own stories count? No? Then I haven’t written any. The first book I wrote was terribly derivative of a story by someone else, but didn’t use the same characters. Its flaw was that it borrowed heavily from the plot. And that’s why it’s tucked away in a file, never to see the light of day. I don’t count it as fanfic.

But I have been part of an anthology, where 11 authors got together and wrote short stories of sand, surf, and sea, using each others’ characters. That was a challenge, as we worked together to make sure that the characters stayed true to the creating author’s image. We also had a very loose timeline, so the stories were presented in chronological order. I think I put almost as much effort into the story for that anthology as I do for my books!

That effort was organized in part by PJ Fiala, who also instrumental in creating this group…thank you!)

The same group did a second collaboration, but it didn’t have the same level of success as the first one. It happens. Those stories featured Lando and Scotty, two recurring supporting characters from the Harmony Duprie books. I hold the copyright on those stories, so maybe I’ll do something with them in the future.

Remember Amazon Worlds? I was invited to join one, but that was right after the two anthologies. I turned down the invite because my own stories were screaming at me to write them, and I had limited time for writing. (I think Amazon closed down the ‘worlds’ effort shortly after that.)

Would I ever join another ‘group’ effort? Absolutely. I loved doing it. Shoot, I might even try fanfiction, given the right story.

As for the fanfiction of my own stories…I’m thinking the story I’m working on now might qualify. It’s a prequel to The Harmony Duprie books, written from Jake’s point of view. I haven’t set a release date yet. Shoot, I still am fighting with myself about the title!

I have no idea how many of the other authors on this blog have worked on collaborative efforts or fanfiction. I’m looking forward to reading more posts. The links are below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe!

Dec 6, 2021

Have you ever written fanfiction or a story that was part of some else’s ‘world’? How does it differ from writing a story entirely on your own?

Nailing The Beginning of a Book: #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne November 21, 2021 November 21, 2021 Open Book

Nov 22, 2021

Which part of your book do you spend the most time on? Beginning, middle or end? Something else?

Sometimes it seems that the more I think I know about writing, the harder it gets. That’s how I feel about writing the beginnings of my books.

The first couple of stories I wrote, I simply sat down and wrote. The opening was the opening. Things have changed. For The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I can document eight different versions of the beginning. Eight. And those are the ones I kept. I can’t tell you how many I started and then tossed.

You know what’s the toughest part? Finding the right place to start. I can throw all kinds of words on a piece of paper, but that doesn’t mean they are the right words. Or the right moment to introduce the reader to the adventure.

I dug out the earliest documented attempt to begin what became The Ranger’s Dog Tags. Here it is, in all its painful ineptness. “Four alarms blaring at the same time,” quickly changed to “Four alarms on my phone blaring.” I have one sheet of paper covered with variations on that theme.

And how did the book start once it had gone through countless edits?

The squad car screamed down the street, its red and blue lights tearing through the darkness. I feathered the gas pedal and waited for a second set of headlights to pass. Dolores, my salsa-red F-type Jaguar, growled in anticipation.

Quite the difference. I lost 3/4ths of the beginning chapter in the editing process.

I’ve got two books in progress right now. (One is deep in edits, the other is only at about 7000 words- a long way to go.) In the opposite of what I usually experience, I actually added most of a chapter at the start of the first one. For the second one, I have shrunk my initial beginning from about 2000 words down to 450, and turned it into a prologue.

Not that the middles and ends aren’t important. I will fight myself over that last paragraph. I want to wrap up the story as well as I started it. The story may be over, but those final words are the what the reader will walk away with. That’s as true for these blog posts as it is for a book.

Want to find out which part of a story the other authors feel is the hardest? Just follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe. And if you are celebrating the US Thanksgiving this week, Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 22, 2021

Which part of your book do you spend the most time on? Beginning, middle or end? Something else?

The Holidays Are Upon Us #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne November 14, 2021 November 14, 2021 Open Book

Nov 15, 2021

With the slew of holidays coming up at the end of the year, do you have watch list of shows/movies you like to watch to celebrate? What are they?

The holiday season is upon us, and you know what I don’t plan to do?

Watch TV.

Of course, that’s nothing new for me. If you follow this blog, you’ve heard this before. I don’t watch TV. I don’t even know what holiday specials are out there.

Can I name any holiday shows? Sure. Old ones. Really old ones. Like The Charlie Brown Christmas from 1965, And Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer from 1964. Yeah, I’m THAT old. Then there’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but I’m not sure I ever sat and watched the whole thing in one stretch.

I used to enjoy the Thanksgiving Day parades, but my tolerance for commercials is so low I don’t watch them anymore. Seems like half the floats in the parades themselves are advertisements. Bah, humbug.

If it’s all right with you, (and even if it’s not) I think I’d rather read a book. Or maybe write one.

If you are looking for recommendations on shows to watch, may I suggest you go read the posts from the other authors on this loop? They’ll likely be more helpful. 🙂

Anyway, until next time, please stay safe!

Nov 15, 2021

With the slew of holidays coming up at the end of the year, do you have watch list of shows/movies you like to watch to celebrate? What are they?

Treasures Remembered and Saved #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne November 7, 2021 November 7, 2021 Open Book

Nov 8, 2021

Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it? How about any of your characters?

I grew up in a large family. Both of my parents also came from large families, so there were cousins galore. Everything got passed down and passed around—clothes, toys, books, bikes—you name it. So, I don’t have any ‘treasures’ from childhood.

There are a few things I wish I still had. The mustard seed necklace that was a Christmas gift. A 1964 JFK silver half dollar. I don’t know what happened to either of them. I wasn’t into dolls or stuffed animals, typical things youngsters save.

My teenage years are different. That’s when I started thinking in terms of ‘me,’ and keeping things for myself. Granted, some of those things were ‘borrowed’ from my older siblings when they didn’t want them anymore.

I still have most of the vintage (1960s) Boy Scout mess kit used by my two older brothers. I’ve taken it camping time and time again and it’s still in decent shape—a testament to how well-made it was. It’s packed away in a box right now, or I would have shared a picture.

The little but functional oil lamp I bought with money from my first job still sits on my desk. And I do mean little—it’s all of four inches high. It’s travelled with me from Pennsylvania to Wyoming to Oregon to Florida and back to Wyoming. I own a couple of ‘real’ oil lamps now, but my this one is still my favorite. (And here’s a picture!)

How about my characters? Do they have any childhood treasures?

I’m sure Harmony has some childhood books on those four bookshelves in her apartment. There are at least a few Nancy Drew books, and some old James Bond paperbacks. There are probably copies of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Knowing Harmony, she kept every college textbook relating to her major in library science, too.

Of course, we know she has her mother’s African Violet and John Denver CDs. They are reminders of her childhood.

How about you? Do you still have any of your childhood treasures? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Follow the links below to check out what the other authors on this hop have to say.

And, as always, stay safe until next time.

Nov 8, 2021

Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it? How about any of your characters?

Not The Legal Me #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne November 1, 2021 November 1, 2021 Open Book

Nov 1, 2021

Did you write under a pseudonym? Why?

Long, long, ago, when I first starting writing, I didn’t like my given name. It was plain, boring, and easily mispronounced. I needed a name that I could identify with. I experimented with a variety of potential pseudonyms, and finally settled on one. Thus, Bobbi Jo Aspen—B.J. Aspen—was born. The first few poems I had published were under that name.

Where did the name come from? Well, the Aspen part may be unexpected. Most folks assume it was a tribute to one of my favorite musicians, John Denver. Well, that’s wrong. Aspens are one of my best-loved kind of trees. (Don’t get me started in how beautiful they are in the fall when they turn gold on the side of a mountain.) The Bobbi Jo? That’s a sideways tribute to the song “Ode to Billy Joe.”

But the name didn’t stick as I got older. I wanted something a little more ‘mature.’ A weirdly addressed piece of junk mail gave me my inspiration, and I became ‘P.J. MacLayne.’

Why use a pseudonym besides finding a ‘better’ name? When I started writing, it was widely understood that men had a better chance of being published than women. By choosing the names I did, I sought to increase my chances of publication. Did it work? There’s no way to prove that.

The other part of using a writing name is security. These days, of course, if you are on the internet, security is almost nonexistent. But in the not-so-long-ago, using an alias made it harder to get personal information about a writer. These days, if you want to be a successful indie author, you have to be willing to exchange a bit of yourself to give your readers a sense of community. (I still struggle with the security vs accessibility part of being an indie author.)

I’ve been using the moniker ‘P.J. MacLayne’ long enough that it’s a part of me. If someone were to call out “Hey, P.J.,” in a public place, I’d look to see who it was.

Several of the authors on this loop use pseudonyms. (The internet told me so!) I wonder if they do it for the same reasons? You can follow the links below to find out.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

Nov. 1, 2021

Did you write under a pseudonym? Why?

A Little Bit Of Summer #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 24, 2021 October 24, 2021 Open Book

Oct 25, 2021

Do any of your characters garden? Or keep houseplants? How about you?

The cushions in my favorite easy chair were slit and the stuffing thrown all over the front room. My books lay scattered on the floor and the bookshelves pulled down on them. My African violets, inherited from my mother, had been dumped from their pots, the dirt spread everywhere. A quick glimpse of the little kitchen showed pots and pans strewn all over. The Marquesa’s Necklace

Don’t worry, with tender, loving care from Harmony, the African Violets survived and showed up in other books in the series. The light that streams through the kitchen window of her small apartment is perfect for them. However, I’ll guarantee that she doesn’t sing to them, but that’s a topic for another day.

Harmony also helps her landlords with their yard work. That includes a large flower garden, so she gets her fill of gardening during the spring and summer. Plus, she’s remodeling an old Victorian house, and dream of restoring the formal rose garden to it’s original glory.

The forecast promised an unseasonably warm day, so I canceled the plans for Auntie Hilda to mingle with the after-church crowd. Instead, plain old me worked on the rose garden at Eli’s. It had a long way to go to match its glory years, but I had a vision. Working with the gardening club, we’d mingled heritage roses in with modern stock to achieve a display both colorful and fragrant. The Samurai’s Inro

As for me? Well, it’s fall in Wyoming, and time for me to move my flowers indoors. I got a plant light this year, and I’m hoping the geraniums will stay healthy longer, getting artificial sunlight along with real sunlight when the weather cooperates. I have one that’s about 12 years old.

Due to the hazards of Wyoming weather, I have learned to plant in pots, so moving them inside is only a problem of running out of space. (We can get snow in May and September, hailstorms anytime in between.) It’s not like living on the Oregon coast, where flowers bloomed all year, and I had a large garden and grew a variety of vegetables. Where the gladiolas would cross-pollinate and I’d end up with variegated buds, and I could make jam from the wild blackberries that grew along the edge of the garden. Yes, sometimes I miss living there. But I need my mountains.

Oh, and why an African Violet? It’s a tribute to my mother, who kept one alive for years and years. I was never in a position to get a cutting from it, but I’ve kept it alive in another way.

I’m betting on a couple of our authors including gardening in their books. Follow the links below, and let’s find out!

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

Do any of your characters garden? Or keep houseplants? How about you?

Sports In My Little Town #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 17, 2021 October 17, 2021 Open Book, Uncategorized

Oct 18, 2021

Are any of your characters fans of a particular sports team?

There’s not a whole lot to do in most small towns unless you plan your own event or go somewhere else. That’s why high school sports take on an almost cult-like following. And Oak Grove, my fictional town in the Harmony Duprie series, is a true small town. Harmony may not belong to the cult, but she still keeps an eye on local teams. I pay homage to that in the books.

‘Football Coach Predicts a Winning Year.’ That one made me smile because Coach Henderson had predicted the same thing for the last fifteen years, and it hadn’t happened yet. The school was too small to field a team that matched its rivals. But there was always hope. From The Baron’s Cufflinks

Not much was going on in Oak Grove that night, with most of the high-schoolers out of town for a football game. From The Marquesa’s Necklace

I’ve explored that concept more in my work-in-progress. (I’m still playing with potential titles, but let’s call it The Thief and The Angel for now.) This is from a conversation between Jake and Harmony.

“I see they’ve hired Coach for another year,” she said.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Oak Grove is too small to have a decent team.” She closed the sports section and laid it on the stair behind them. “We haven’t had a winning season in years. But the alumni and school board don’t want to give up on it. And every year, at least one boy gets a college scholarship, so they keep the team going. In a good year, two or three boys will get scholarships, even if they are to colleges no one ever heard of.”

While none of my characters are huge fans of a particular team, many of them follow sports in general. I can use sports as a way to establish time and personality. If I write about American football, it’s fall. Basketball belongs to winter and spring, while baseball is summer.

Then there’s personality. In The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I imagined Detective Timothy Horace as a football linebacker. When I figured out that he was a golfer, it changed how I wrote him. (his physical size remained the same.) Although he was could use his size as a physical weapon, he preferred a more subtle approach to his job.

I have a coworker who can recite stats on numerous baseball players (not just one team.) so, it would be easy for me to write that into a character. I just haven’t done it yet. But I’m playing around with a new plot in my head, so who knows?

Let’s find out if any of the other authors have superfans in their books. Just follow the links below.
And, as always, stay safe until the next time.

Oct 18, 2021

Are any of your characters fans of a particular sports team?

My TBR (To-Be-Read) List #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 10, 2021 October 10, 2021 Open Book

Oct 11, 2021

What’s on your “TBR” (to be read) list?

Winter is on its way, although the forecast has backed off the snow that was predicted for my location this week, and that means more time for reading. (I hope!) So, what’s on my TBR (to-be-read list?)

Let’s start with one that’s been nagging me— Tripwire, the third Jack Reacher book. I got about a third of the way through it, and gave up. I wasn’t getting into the story. I feel obligated to give it another try because I enjoyed the first two in the series.

Then there’s two books I should be getting for my birthday—a Craig Johnson (Longmire) book and a Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum) novel. Not the newest Longmire, because I wait until they come out in paperback. After my disappointment in the book two (?) years ago, I’m not as much as much of a fan as I used to be. And I’m backfilling the Stephanie Plum books because I started reading them in the middle.

Next comes “The Time Is Now, A Call to Uncommon Courage” by Joan Chittister. I’ve mentioned her on this blog before. She’s the Roman Catholic nun famous for the quote “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed.” She also happens to have been one of my teachers.

I also have a personal goal to read at least one book by every author who participates in this hop on a regular basis. I’m not doing a good job on that one. I’ve read books by two of them, bought books by two of them, and I still need to buy books by the rest of them. (No names. I don’t want to get in trouble with any of them!) Hey. I’ll get there one of these days.

What else? I bought a couple yellow-cover Nancy Drew books a while back to add to my collection. I should read them before I put them on the shelf. The racism in the last one I read has made me hesitate.

I’m trying to make it though a bunch of books I’ve downloaded to my Kindle. The quality varies, and I’m not finishing ones that don’t capture my attention after a chapter or two. I’m even making a mental list of ones I need to remove. (No names here, either.)

That’s enough to last me a month or so. But I’m sure I’ll find more books to add to my list by the time I get done reading the other posts on this hop!

Off-topic- Speaking of the kindle- is there a way to get the library to show books in alphabetical order by author’s name? I’m using the kindle app and haven’t found a way to do it. I can sort by titles alphabetically, but not by author.

Anyway, until next time, stay safe!

Oct 11, 2021

What’s on your “TBR” (to be read) list?

Writers Writing on Everything #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 3, 2021 October 3, 2021 Open Book

Oct 4, 2021

Does ‘show don’t tell’ ever run up against your personal prohibitions?

The slogan for the group seems especially apt for this weeks discussion. “Writers Writing on Everything.” But do we?

I thought I had an easy answer to this, because if you’ve been following me for even a short time, you know I don’t write detailed sex scenes. There are several reasons for it, but it boils down to that I don’t think I’d be any good at it. I’m okay with an occasional sex scene in a story, but I find many of them boring and repetitive. It’s not because I have a personal prohibition against it.

So, I got to thinking. What don’t I write about? I’ve got behind-the-scenes sex, guns, violence, drugs, and rock-and-roll. (Well, maybe not so much on the rock-and-roll. You’re more likely to come across a reference to John Denver in my books.) What am I leaving out?

In a process of elimination, I figured it out. Horror. I don’t write horror. I don’t read it, I don’t like it, I don’t write it. I don’t watch horror movies or suspense movies that lean towards horror. There is enough horror in this world without adding to it in the name of entertainment. I can’t deal with the idea of hurting another person for the joy of it.

Would I ever ‘tell’ it in a story? If the story absolutely demanded it, maybe, but I’d do everything I could to avoid including even the telling of such a scene in one of my books. I’ve had arguments with my characters about the plots of books, and this is an instance where’d I’d put my foot down and write it the way I wanted it written. And that would mean no horror elements.

Does that go against the idea of writers writing everything? Well, I also wouldn’t write Christian romance. Or a treatise on how Martin Luther changed the role of women in European society. There’s also the old advice about writing what you know, and I know I’m not qualified in either of those subjects. Same with horror.

I will happily keep writing my sex scenes behind closed doors, leaving the details up to you, the reader. I think I’ve found the level of violence in my stories I’m comfortable with, and will continue that way as the story calls needs. As for rock-and-roll —I need to up my game. I wonder what kind of music my wolf shifters listen to?

While I ponder that question, I’m going to check out what the other authors on this hop will tell, not show. You can, too, by following the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

Oct 4, 2021

Does ‘show don’t tell’ ever run up against your personal prohibitions?

Category: Open Book