Author: P.J. MacLayne

With A Touch Of Humor #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Sept 1, 2025

Share the funniest scene you’ve written.

Alternatively, the scariest scene.

I don’t write funny. What I write are humorous moments in the middle of serious business. And Harmony Duprie, my favorite ex-librarian turned internet researcher, is the perfect character for this.

Harmony is an intelligent woman who sometimes suffers from an occasionally lack of common sense. Her logic doesn’t always work the same way as everyone else’s. That results in unexpected fun and adventures.

Here’s the setup for my selection: Eli Hennessey, Harmony’s longtime boss/lover/partner, has been hospitalized for several months after a serious injury. She’s been trying to track down the person responsible for causing the auto accident. In this scene, she’s discovered an intruder in his room, holding him and two others hostage. Harmony is determined to upend the situation.

I gathered my weapons. The paperback book. The mirror. My purse. If I rushed into the room, there’d be additional items to grab. This wasn’t a precision operation.

But I wanted to start with a message.

I fought to pull off the chain around my neck with one hand. If I threw the dog tags to the right spot, Eli would see them and know I was there. Small enough comfort, but a ray of hope.

The bedframe was my initial target. I didn’t wait for the clang of metal against metal to tell me if my aim had been good. The paperback, thrown in Eli’s general direction, followed the dog tags. Next, the mirror and my purse.

By then, I was halfway into the room. I grabbed the closest stuffed animal and hurled it at the attacker’s head. Instinctively, he raised his right hand—his gun hand—to fend it off. He knocked it away, and it hit the floor and started singing ‘It’s a Small World.’
from ‘The Ranger’s Dog Tags’

On the face of it, it isn’t funny.

But when I imagine my slim, 30-something, glasses-wearing, brown hair in a bun, heroine facing down an unknown opponent, wielding nothing more than a stuffed animal, it makes me smile.

By the way, the stuffed animal makes another appearance in a conversation between Harmony and Eli..

“The minute my dog tags came flying through the door, I knew you were here. And when you followed them, I thought I was in a dream. Or a nightmare. But never tell my mother you used her latest stuffed animal as a weapon.”

“I hope that song haunts him for the rest of his life.”

“You should ask your cop friend to have it piped into his cell on a continuous loop.”

I grinned. “Tempting. But wouldn’t that fall under cruel and unusual punishment?”

“He’d deserve every minute.”

The whole book was fun (but tough) to write, but this scene is one of my favorites. (Obligatory self-promotion: You can find out more about The Ranger’s Dog Tags at https://www.pjmaclayne.com/?page_id=6458.

I’m looking forward to reading the excerpts from out other authors. You can find them at the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe! 

Sept 1, 2025

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Share the funniest scene you’ve written. Alternatively, the scariest scene.

Investing In My Writing #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

August 25, 2025

What is the best money you’ve ever spent in your writing endeavor?

What is the worst?

The politically correct answer is that the best money I’ve ever spent is what I’ve paid to the various editors along the way. Having other eyes look over my manuscript, checking for errors I’ve missed, is worth every penny that I’ve spent. It’s also the easy answer. But thank you, Angela Pryce, Cornelia Amari, and Angel Nyx, among many others. (All of you out there on Critique Circle, you deserve kudos, too.)

But it isn’t my final answer. Some years ago, after being a vendor at a couple of cons and a craft show or two, I realized how many opportunities occurred outside. I had no desire to spend hours in the baking sun of a Wyoming summer.

So, I bought a canopy. Just a cheap one, but it’s done the job for seven or so years. I’ve never got the hang of putting it up by myself, but I almost always get help from a next-door vendor. (And help them in return.)

This year, I’ve used it at four outdoor events. (And sold over 70 books!)

I want to mention a runner-up. Some years ago, I was gifted a lifetime subscription to ProWritingAid. I can’t call it an investment because i didn’t pay for it. I use it regularly.

What is the worst?

I’ve paid for blog tours for most of my new releases, using well-known and reputable organizers. None of them proved successful. They brought nothing in sales, and only one or two reviews despite their efforts.

How about other authors? What were their best and worst investments? Find out by following the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

August 25, 2025

What is the best money you’ve ever spent your money on in your writing endeavor? What is the worst?

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Staying By My Side #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

August 18, 2025

Who stayed by your side during your hardest time in life?

If you’ve followed me, you may have noticed that I don’t talk a lot about my personal life.

And that’s on purpose. My family members are not fodder for my stories. They deserve their privacy. But the answer to this question demands that I break my rule and talk about my husband.

I can’t even say what the hardest time of my life was. Together, we’ve been through it. Together is the operative word. That we even met, let alone stayed together for over 50 years, defies logic. We’ve faced challenges you hope you never see happen—except to other people. Without him by my side, I don’t know if I could have handled everything life threw at us.

Again, I won’t go into details.

Let’s just say that someone once joked I should have been a doctor to deal with all the illnesses and conditions that the family has faced (now including the grandchildren.) But most of the time, I feel blessed with the life we have been given. (Or worked for and earned, depending upon your point of view.)

So, this is a short but well-deserved tribute to my husband. He’s stayed by me and supported me through everything. (Including incredible patience with what goes into my writing.)

No, that’s not us. We have some sweet pictures of us together, but remember the privacy thing?

How about the other authors on this hop? Who supports them? Find out by following the links below.

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August 18, 2025

Who stayed by your side during your hardest time in life?

What’s To Eat? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

August 11,2025

Are you a breakfast, lunch, or dinner person?

What does your ideal meal look like?

For many years, I didn’t eat breakfast. I’d have a large glass of orange juice and call it good. These days I often treat myself with a bowl of flavored oatmeal, especially in the colder months.

And lunch? I have mixed emotions. I loved when we went out as a team (before I retired). But I had to be careful what I ate. If I splurged on pasta, I’d often get a midday slump, so I normally stuck to salads or other lighter fare. (Yes, I have figured out it was a symptom of a thyroid problem. It’s being treated now.) These days, lunch is basically whatever I can grab when I feel like it. Occasionally, the hubby and I will go out for lunch, when the mood strikes us.

That leaves supper.

Supper is always an adventure. There are three different dietary issues I have to accommodate. Trying to find one meal plan that suits everyone is basically impossible. So, I end up having a backup for the main dish. I refuse to serve chicken for every meal. Personally, I prefer Italian food. Spaghetti, lasagna, or anything similar. (One member of the household doesn’t eat any pasta, so

But the best thing about supper is that it signals the end of the day. A time to relax. No rush to get to work or the grandkids to school. A time to sit at the computer and catch up on email or reading.

So, I guess I’m a dinner person.

How about the other people on this hop? What’s their favorite meal? Follow the links below to find out.

 

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August 11, 2025

Are you a breakfast, lunch, or dinner person? What does your ideal meal look like?

 

Perils of the Publishing Industry #IWSG

  By IWSG
 
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
 
The awesome co-hosts for the August 6 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

 
August 6 question – What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?
 
First, I apologize. I’m late getting this post up. And it will be a quick one, because I chose to be an indie author back when I first thought about sharing my stories, and I haven’t kept up with all the shenanigans of publishers.
 
My first problem was the time frame needed to get a agent, find a publisher, and see your words make it into print. I was too darn old to wait for all of that!
 
But my biggest issue was the small amount of money authors receive from their hard work. Unless you are a rare author who makes it to a best seller list book after book, the payout is meager. And I knew enough to not get involved with vanity publishers, who promise you the world and you end up with a thousand copies of your book sitting in your spare room. Or stacked in a closet,
 
And vanity presses are getting sneakier. Authors have to stay alert. There are also new scams with people wanting to publicize their work. (I love the emails proclaiming to love my book and never mentioning the name.) AI is making it easier for the scammers and harder for authors.
 

But the one that has always bugged me is Amazon’s return policies.

 
For both ebooks and audio books. They almost turn Amazon into a lending library instead of a book seller. I can easily read a book and return it within the allowable time frame, then move on to another. But Amazon is the biggest vender of books, so I feel stuck, needing to have my books on that platform. Still, I don’t use KDP because I want my stories to be available across many outlets.
 
What issues do other others see? There’s a long list of people sharing their views below. Check out a few of them.
 
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
 

Editing Is Hard #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

August 4, 2025

Tell us about a writing lesson you learned the hard way.

I released my first book in 2014.

Of course, I had sent it through several online editors and a critique group before I published it. But it didn’t take long for a reader to find and point out the first error. Later, I heard about another one. And another. A reviewer said my primary female character winked too much. And they were right.

Luckily, it was fixable. I found enough instances of the word near the end of paragraphs to switch them out without reformatting an entire page or chapter. But it was a lesson I needed. But it also led me to pay more attention to overused words.

But editing is more than grammar and spelling.

There’s pacing and story flow and continuity. (Does the main character start with blue eyes and end with brown ones?) Don’t forget eliminating cliched phrases. {She released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.) Then there’s using the same uncommon word more that once, too close together. Let’s use the word metaphorical as an example. Used once, it’s interesting. Twice, it’s a little less gripping. Used three times close together, it loses its power.

As you can see, editing is hard. There’s always more to learn. And, no matter how many eyes look at the manuscript, an error can slip through.

What lessons have our other editors learned? Find out by following the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

August 4, 2025

Tell us about a writing lesson you learned the hard way.

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Including Politics In My Stories #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

July 28, 2025

Do you avoid or actively include writing about the current political atmosphere in your stories?

Some folks view it as part of a writer’s job description; to write about politics.

But I write, in part, to give both myself and my readers a chance to escape from the real world. So politics, especially current-day politics, isn’t part of it. Also, including current events can date my work and make it less relatable.

That doesn’t mean I don’t include political references. For example, in the early books of the Harmony Duprie Mysteries, I mentioned that Jake Hennessey smoked marijuana. Once, maybe. When I wrote it, weed was illegal in the state the story was set in. That has changed, and if a reader picks up on the reference, they have to remember how things used to be.

I also skirted around politics in the first book of The Edwards Investigations, The Rimer Files.

Since it is set in the mid-1980s, many people won’t remember specific events from the time. Instead, I tried to create the mood of the era in Pittsburgh, where the story took place instead. Steel mills closing, rampant drug use, unemployment a major issue. Most people won’t be able to tell you who the president of the United States was then, although they might know who the Queen of England was. (Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II)

But the story more than touches on the issue of the changing role of women in society. It’s a major part of the plot, without going into details. What it doesn’t include are references to specific real people.

So, back to the original question.

Do I include politics in my writing? Like in so many things, I chose moderation. I don’t actively include politics, but I don’t avoid the topic either.

How about our other authors? Do they include politics in their writing? Find out by checking out the links below.

And, as always, please stay safe until the next time.

July 28, 2025

Do you avoid or actively include writing about the current political atmosphere in your stories?

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The Hardest Job I’ve Ever Done #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

July 21, 2025

Continuing on the topic of money —

What is the hardest thing you have done to earn money?

I’ve never dug a ditch for money, but I helped build a hiking trail (for free) when I was in the Girl Scouts. Dirty work, but fun because of the other girls working on the project. Being a camp counselor was hard, but basically was a summer-long camping trip and I enjoyed it.

Then there was the job I had cleaning a weekly newspaper office in a small town. This was back before the work was computerized, and the night before publication, there’d be the remnants of sticky paper all over the floor and desks. They had to be pulled or scraped off using a paint scraper. That would happen in the afternoon, after the final version of that week’s edition had been taken by car to a print shop in the neighboring city.

That evening, a small team of three would insert the week’s ads (The color ad pages came pre-printed to the office.) into the folded papers and put labels on the ones that were to be mailed. The address labels came on large rolls and were pasted on the papers using a machine controlled by a foot pedal. This was back in the day when the ink used on newspapers rubbed off on your hands, so imagine what my hands looked like when the tasks were finished!

Then there was my gig working at a sugar mill factory.

This involved sugar beets, not sugarcane. The beets came from local farms and would be brought to the factory by the trailer load. They would be ground up and processed, with white sugar being the result.

I had one of the easier jobs, collecting samples. I’d go to certain spots both inside and outside the factory, retrieving tubes of the partially finished product (in different stages of processing) and running a variety of tests on them.

One of the sample sites was outside, behind the factory, in a basically unlit area. Since I was working swing shift, the last sample of the shift was an adventure, requiring the use of a flashlight and nerves of steel.

But that isn’t why I left that job. I was a newlywed, and my husband was working revolving shifts at a different company. It seemed like we never got to spend time together. I didn’t mind the work, but hated being apart.

The worst job?

I did a short stint as a waitress at an extremely busy pizza/Italian restaurant. I’d worked at a small restaurant previously, and thought I knew what I was getting into, but was wrong. This new place was so busy that all I did was run. No time to interact with customers, just run, run, run. I lasted there only one week. And I don’t remember the tips being enough to make me regret leaving.

How about other authors? What is the hardest job they’ve done? Find out by following the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

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Buying My Way Into Fame #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

July 14, 2025

Which would you rather have?

Money or Fame?

You’ve likely heard the saying, “Money can’t buy happiness.” But I’ve always thought happiness is a lot easier to achieve with money enough to cover the basics and more. Worry about having enough food? Pay for medical care? Being able to help others without having to check your budget? Not a problem with a good flow of cold, hard cash or the electronic equivalent. It won’t solve everything, but can go a long way.

What about choosing between money or fame?

Here’s my take. I’ve never chased the idea of fame. I wish for readers, but enjoy a quiet life. Like many authors, I’m a bit of an introvert, and it’s draining to interact with strangers for hours, even when the topic is writing. (Like I do when I’m out at events selling my books.)

And money can buy fame. Or, at least, a best-seller title. There are stories of organizations buying mass quantities of books (especially for pre-order) in order to inflate numbers to make it on a bestseller list. (The books are then distributed for free.) Political and religious figures have done this. Safeguards have been put in place to stop this tactic, not always successfully.

Money can also buy an author’s way into numerous opportunities to market their books. I have to limit where I sell my books because I can’t afford to spend money on airfare and hotels all across the country. Or even internationally. And some events can be really pricey.

I limit myself to one event a year where I have to stay overnight. And I’ve never sold enough books to cover the hotel room. I usually sell enough to cover the costs of the venue and supplies. With enough money, I could travel to many places to help connect with new readers.

But fame can bring in money.

In 2025, some of the gift bags distributed at the Academy Awards were worth over $200,000. The speaker fees for Nora Roberts can range between $50,000 to $100,000. Craig Johnson, the author of the Longmire series, “only” receives between $5,000 and $10,000.

So, which do I choose? Remember that I’m an introvert? I choose money. That way I have more control of my life, my time, my interactions with others.

What do the others on this hop choose? Money or Fame? Find out by following the links below.

And, as always, please stay safe until next time.

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July 14, 2025

Which would you rather have? Money or Fame?

 

 

Wasting My Time #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

July 7, 2025

What is your favorite way to waste time? (be non-productive)

Bird watching? Long walks? Does it help your writing?

What was the saying? Idle hands are the devil’s playground? I haven’t heard that for a long time, thank heavens. Because having free time is good for the creative process. I’ll come back to that.

Oddly enough, there are times I feel like I have less free time now that I am retired than I did when I was working. It took me time to realize that with no structure to my structure to my schedule, it’s easy to accomplish nothing. I’ve developed a severe case of I’ll-get-around-to-it-ivness.

I’m working on it with a mental list of things that need to be done. But there’s nothing holding me to it except my own determination. Some days, I’m short on that.

I’ve developed some new time wasters.

Bird watching was never my thing. But it’s interesting how many varieties of birds I see in my yard. I think we are on a migratory route and I’ll spot an unusual species occasionally. Once, I spotted a downy woodpecker pecking at the railing on my deck. On a regular basis, there are grackles and cardinals and wrens in my yard. This year, I added several kinds of orioles to my list. (I even put up an oriole feeder this year. I’ve had a hummingbird feeder for several years.) Sadly, I haven’t spotted my neighborhood ravens this year.


Another new time-waster is the time I spend dead-heading my outdoor flowers, so they will bloom longer. That’s a summer-only activity, of course. Doing yard work is productive, but does nothing to add to my word count. Or does it?

While I’m deciding which branches on my quince bush need to be cut away from the house, I may be wondering how many people know what an Army blanket looks like? Do I call it an Army blanket in my story, or describe it as being olive green and made of wool and scratchy? And what is the difference between a pine tree and a fir? More importantly, how does my protagonist deal with the senator’s son hiding out in the mountains? And cutting branches may be a metaphor for the word trimming I am doing mentally. 

So, I don’t believe that being non-productive is a waste of time. It refreshes the brain and allows creative juices to flow.

What is your favorite way to waste time? Check out other authors’ responses by following the links below.

And, as always, until next time, please stay safe!

July 7, 2025

What is your favorite way to waste time? (be non-productive) Bird watching? Long walks? Does it help your writing?

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