Category: Open Book

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Remodeling #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

June 16, 2025

Hypothetical: Someone will pay to redecorate your living room. what would you like it to look like?

Thanks, but no thanks.

My living room doesn’t need much, other than a lighter color paint on the walls. (Maybe even just one wall.) It already has two matching deep brown recliners you can sink into, a matching sofa, a coffee table with a faux marble top that looks straight out of a Victorian room (and a matching side table) a curio cabinet, a full-height bookshelf, and a gas fireplace. It’s a room that wraps around you and welcomes you in when you enter through the front door. The house is an old Victorian era house (but not Victorian style—it looks more like an old farmhouse) and the room matches the house’s personality.

Now, my kitchen is a different matter, and I’d welcome a full remodel.

It’s smaller than I expected from the pictures. The first thing it needs is more square footage, and that requires an addition. It also needs new cabinets, sticking with a natural wood (I’m guessing these are over fifty years old) and new flooring. The laminate was installed badly, and it can’t stand up to the amount of foot traffic it gets. (The flooring is on my to-do list.) A large family were the previous owners, and I can’t imagine cooking for a family that size in the current space.

I want the room to be big enough to have space for a small kitchen table. I’d prefer to not sit at the dining room table to eat every meal. Seriously, I don’t think anyone who does any real cooking would get along with the room.

The color of the walls needs changed, too. They are currently a millennial gray-blue and I’d prefer something bright and airy. A pale blue could work. A shade of yellow might look okay, but I’d need to ponder my choices. The appliances should be replaced, but I doubt I’d be able to find any with the personality and reliability of what is there already.

I have no clue how much this would cost. (The addition alone would likely be an arm and a leg.) But unless I get rich off my next release, it won’t happen.

One thing I should note: I have no experience as an interior designer. I’d be leaning on others for help.

What about the other authors? What are they remodeling? Find out by following the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

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 June 16, 2025

Hypothetical: Someone will pay to redecorate your living room. what would you like it to look like?

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Unpacking Plots Of T.V. Shows #Openbook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

June 9, 2025

Do you find it is harder to not unpack a plot in a movie, predicting what will happen, now that you write your own stories?

I no longer watch TV.

Well, not on a regular basis. And I don’t follow any shows. I gave it up years ago, when I was working full time and taking college courses in the evening. There was no time to keep track of television programs. Besides, I hated commercials. I spent more time picking them apart than paying attention to what they were selling, irritating the heck out of my husband.

Back them I was critiquing their use of devices like the obvious minority representation. There had to be an African American, a Hispanic, and a woman. Or twisting a stereotypical representation of a woman to a man. So, instead of a dumb housewife, you had a clueless guy. Don’t forget the nerdy, glasses-wearing, blond kid with a bad haircut.

Of course, that bled into critiquing the shows themselves for similar infractions.

And man, there were a lot of them. Which led to critiquing for plot holes. (this was before I started writing my own fiction. Great training, eh?) When I began to analyze the first few minutes to figure out how the story would end, it destroyed the experience. The last show I sat through was when Longmire was still on a “regular” channel, not Netflix. And I only stuck with it because I’d enjoyed the books. (I read the first ones before the show started.) Still, I’d pick at the changes that had been made to the stories to make them fit television.

Shoot, I’ve found myself judging the performance of weather forecasters.

Especially on overdone storm predictions. I realize they are working for the ratings, but seriously, not every storm needs to be seen as an end of the world event.

But I do the same thing to many books I read. (Especially romances.) I once had someone complain they didn’t know who the villain was in a book I wrote by the end of the first chapter. I took that as a win rather than the criticism it was meant to be.

What do I do instead? I’d love to claim that I spend the time reading, but no, I spend too much time in front of a computer screen. Writing, on social media, sometimes mindlessly scrolling through various sites. It’s a bad habit and too easy to fall into.

How about other authors? Do they attempt to decipher the plots of T.V. shows while  they are watching them? Check out their posts by following the below links.

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

June 9, 2025

Do you find it is harder to not unpack a plot in a movie, predicting what will happen, now that you write your own stories?

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My Favorite Summer Plans #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

June 2, 2025

What are your favorite summer plans?

In childhood, summer meant long walks on the backroads of Pennsylvania,

And thru the fields and forests. Bicycling. Hours of reading and doing crafts. Fishing in the “crick” down past the neighbor’s pasture.

For many of my adult years, it meant trips to the mountains. The Big Horns. The Beartooths. The Never Summer Range. Or maybe walks on the Oregon Coast beaches with my children, where the hills tumbled down to the ocean. There were also the years when the West Coast got switched to the East Coast, and the walks were on the long, sandy beaches of Florida and the Atlantic.

Since I retired, my summer plans have changed. I spend my time in my yard, tending to whatever flowers and other plants I’ve managed to keep away from the local white-tailed deer. I no longer have to go to the mountains, since I am living among the rolling hills of the northern Appalachians. I’m there. Or maybe I will repaint my front steps. (Yes, they are purple.) Mornings, I can birdwatch from my little deck. Of course, I have a list of normal chores to take care of.

Then there are the weekends.

And a whole range of festivals and similar events. (You can check the front page of this website to see the current list. https://www.pjmaclayne.com/  ) This year, I’m trying something new. Our borough has a community yard sale the first weekend of June that brings in lots of people, and I’m going to attempt to sell my books this year. It’s free, so worth the try. I’m also adding a few new events to my repertoire. (Waterford and Lancaster.)

So, those are my plans. And somewhere in there I have a short story I need to finish. (I’ve restarted it three times now. Each version has been an improvement.)

How about the others who are  posting on this hop? What are their plans? Find out by following the  links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

June 2, 2025

What are your favorite summer plans?

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It’s A Kick In The Pants #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 26, 2025

What are your triggers for writing? (For instance, what gets you hyped or starts the story in your head).

What chills your drive to write?

Let’s start with the easy one. What chills my drive to write? There are two main ones: stress and lack of privacy. Stress can come from a variety of sources, but financial is the primary one. (Isn’t that true for many of us?) You’d think writing would be a way to relieve stress, but that doesn’t work for me.

Then there’s the lack of privacy. My writing space is now in a public area of our house. There’s frequent foot traffic passing by. Even if I’m deep in writing, I can be interrupted frequently. Not just when I’m writing, either. I could just be surfing the net or listening to music and I’ll get a tap on the shoulder. I frequently feel as if someone is watching me. Plus, there’s too much noise. My headphones cancel out a lot, but not all of it. It makes it hard to concentrate. (I think I have a harder time concentrating in general these days.)

What gets me hyped? 

I didn’t use to need to get hyped to write. It was a constant state of being. Give me ten minutes and a piece of paper and pen, and I’d be spitting out words. But I’ve slowed down. It might be that I’m trying to work on too many stories at once. (I’m working on three.) I used to work on one at a time, so my concentration is scattered. Or it’s all the outside pressures I’m dealing with. Or maybe I’m worried no one cares about my writing.

But a good idea will spark my urge to write every time. I’m currently working on my third version of a short story, and the more I work with the main character, the plot keeps shifting into something new and better. Or maybe a twist will pop into my head as I crawl into bed after a writing session, as my character tells me what I’ve missed. (His name is Amos Headley. Love that name.)

Anyway, the longing to write is still with me constantly, even if I don’t get to it. (Which makes me feel guilty. Which, in itself, is a deterrent to writing. Vicious cycle.)

What triggers the other authors on this hop? Find out by following the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.

May 26, 2025

What are your triggers for writing? (For instance, what gets you hyped or starts the story in your head).
What chills your drive to write?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

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We’re Living In The Future #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 19, 2025

Which sci-fi invention would you like to see made real?

We’re living in the future.

A few years back, I had a few episodes of vertigo, and my doctor was trying to find the cause. They referred me to an ear, nose and throat specialist, and I went through a battery of standard tests. As we were discussing the preliminary results, I mentioned the injury I’d received as a teen when I’d had a bicycle accident. The technician asked if I’d had an MRI back then to examine potential damage to my inner ear. I laughed and reminded him MRIs didn’t exist back then. He blinked, cocked his head, and quietly said “oh” before moving on to the next test.

I’ve also been involved with personal computers since the early days. In the early days, there was upper and lower memory, accessed through DOS commands. That was before gigabyte hard drives were a thing. Now, we have access to storage thousands of times larger that we hold in the palms of our hands.

How about phones? When I was a child, party lines were a thing. Yes, you could pick up the phone attached to the wall or sitting on a desk and listen to your neighbor’s conversation (if they were talking to someone,) and you had to wait your turn. And long-distance calls cost an arm and leg. Now, land lines are almost a novelty.

Speaking of phones, cell phones didn’t exist back then. And the first ones were strictly phones. Now, we hold more computing power in the phone stuck in our back pocket than the first computers that sat on our desks.

But what does the future hold?

What hasn’t happened? How about teleportation? In these days, when our lives often take us far from friends and families, how much easier would it be if we could get from place to place in a matter of seconds? It sounds good, but I wouldn’t want to be one of the early users. From what I understand of the technology, it sounds risky. Not one I want to be a part of.

How about interstellar travel? That sounds like fun. I’d love to see far-off planets. But I’m old, and I don’t believe I’ll see it happen. That’s okay, because there are plenty of places on Mother Earth that I haven’t seen yet.

But if I could choose which sci-fi inventions would happen, it would be in the medical field. Cures for cancer. Diabetes. Alzheimers and so many more. Heck, throw better vision correction and a cure for the common cold in there. Medical care for free, of course. I’ve seen too many people who live in pain every day. I’d like to see an end to that.

So, we’ve come a long way since I was a youngster, but there’s a long way to go. 

What invention in sci-fi would you like to see become reality? Tell me in the comments. And to find out what the other authors that take part in this hop hope for, check out the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

 

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May 19, 2025

Which sci-fi invention would you like to see made real?

 

What Word Do You Despise? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 12, 2025

We’ve talked about our favorite words. Is there a word you despise?

One you refuse to use in your writing?

Finding my favorite words was easy. But one I despise? Not so much. There are many ugly words in the English language. Some sound rough, while the meaning behind others is hurtful. I won’t list them here, because many people are offended just reading them. 

That doesn’t mean I won’t use those words. But they rarely come up in my writing. 

You want an example? How about racism? The word isn’t hard on the ears, but the philosophy behind it is against my beliefs.

Then there are words that are used to denigrate women. You know them. I don’t need to spell them out. I have used them in my stories, but sparingly. The words carry a punch, but if overused, become meaningless. Which may be a good thing, but defeats the reason I include them.

So, I haven’t run into a word that is off-limits. Besides, eliminating the word doesn’t put an end to the ideology it represents. Words are tools for writers, and we need to keep all of them available for our use.

Check out if any of our authors do have words they won’t use by following the links below.

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

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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May 12, 2025

We’ve talked about our favorite words. Is there a word you despise? One you refuse to use in your writing?

 

Falling In Love Again & Again #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

May 5, 2025

Which of your characters do you have the biggest crush on?

I fall in love with most of my characters.

Even several of the villains. (Or maybe they never crossed the line from being a bad guy to a true villain.) But a few stand out.

If you’ve followed me for long, you know about how much I love Harmony Duprie, my ex-librarian turned internet researcher, turned female sleuth. I’ve mentioned more than once how I’d love to spend a quiet summer’s day with her, sitting on her steps, drinking ice tea, and swapping stories. But while she’d be a good friend, she’s not my crush. Even Eli, her good-looking retired Army Ranger boyfriend, now tech company owner, doesn’t qualify as my main crush. (In fact, I often worried about not giving him the attention he deserved.)

Neither Dot nor Gavin from Wolves’ Pawn qualifies either. As they were the main characters in the first book I released, you’d think they’d have a special place in my heart, and they do. But not as crushes. They were made for each other, and I was an outsider from day one.

But a very secondary character stuck with me. 

Lori Grenville only appeared in two or three chapters of Wolves’ Pawn. She was sassy and unafraid of authorities in any form. She was also averse to recognition, preferring to work behind the scenes. But she wormed her way into my brain.

It wasn’t until four years later that Lori demanded her own book. Of course, the story went a different direction than I’d planned. And as I wrote it, I developed a crush on her. She may have been the runt of the litter, but had developed the skills and attitude to stand up to the biggest opponents. (And allies.) She was a master of manipulation, but used the tactic sparingly. I’ve always loved the underdog, and if you looked up underdog in the dictionary, you’d find her picture next to the definition. And I absolutely love her. But …

You know he’s going to make an appearance.

Jake Hennessey, He always shows up. Jake is my gentleman, sometimes down-on-his-luck, jewel thief. He’s very much the bad boy with a heart of gold and an interesting set of ethics who I kept trying to write out of the Harmony Duprie stories, unsuccessfully.

But what makes him my top crush is how much he loved Harmony. He loved her enough to let her go, right into the arms of his cousin, who would be better able to take care of her. This, despite the fact that he’d sacrificed his own future to protect hers. She’d never known. No one, beside me and him, knew. (Well, and maybe any of you that read all the Harmony and Jake books.) How could I not have a crush on him?

Do you have a book crush? Share in the comments. And to find out which characters our other authors have a crush on, follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

May 5, 2025

Which of your characters do you have the biggest crush on?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Headed to the Fair #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

April 28, 2025

In the US and other countries, many areas are gearing up for festivals and fairs.

Do you have a favorite? Any specific part that you don’t want to miss? (exhibits, food, rides, animals, people watching?)

Now that winter is over, it’s not just spring, it’s close enough to imagine summer. That means it’s time for festivals and fairs. And for me to line up events to sell books.

My joy in riding roller coasters and other rides, (which started in my teens) faded away as my equilibrium worsened because of an inner ear injury. Now, I am relegated to vender booths, activities, and games. I’m mostly satisfied with being one of those venders.

I have plenty of events to choose from. Many old towns celebrate their history in some fashion. There are county fairs and even a balloon launch in a nearby town. One town has an apple festival in the fall. I have to choose which will have the kind of audience that will want to buy my books.

That means I don’t get to participate in the activities.

Sure, I might be close enough to listen to bands or watch face painters at work, but I’m mostly stuck at my booth. I’ll talk to nearby venders and check out their offerings, but since I’m a one-person operation, I can’t wander off too far.

So, I have to be content with people-watching when I’m not talking to a passerby about my books. Those two ladies running the hand-made jewelry stand—do they spend their nights together designing new items or is theirs strictly a business arrangement? And the gentleman with the eye-catching display of colorful clothing—is he longing for the winter when he can stay in one place for more than a few days?

I’m trying a couple of new events this year, so we’ll see how things go. (You can see my schedule on the front page.) 

What part of festivals and fairs is your favorite? let me know in the comments. And to find out what the others on this hop enjoy, follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe!

April 28, 2025

In the US and other countries, many areas are gearing up for festivals and fairs. Do you have a favorite? Any specific part that you don’t want to miss? (exhibits, food, rides, animals, people watching?)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

The Wandering Path #OpenBook Blog hop

  By Open Book

April 21, 2025

Do you write your stories start to finish, or do you write scenes out of order and then assemble them in the proper order?

Most of you know I’m a pantser.

That means I don’t plot my stories out before I start writing. I may know where I want to start and finish, but everything in between is uncharted territory. That contrasts with friends who have the storyline all figured out before they put pen to paper. (Or fingers to keyboard.)

So I write chronologically. Otherwise, I have no idea where my characters want the story to go. They’ll give me hints of what is going to happen, but take me there in their own time. I’m more likely to delete a scene than to work ahead.

But there are always exceptions. My next book in the Edwards Investigations (Still unnamed) is one of those. I wrote an absolutely kickass opening scene, and then realized it wasn’t an opening scene at all. It belongs later in the book. I’ve saved it, and will pull it out to add when the plot demands it.

And then there’s Jake.

Jake Hennessey, a secondary character in the Harmony Duprie series, loves to break the rules. After the third book, I attempted to write a short story about how he and Harmony met—it didn’t work. He wouldn’t reveal his secrets to me. So, when I’d wrapped up the series and moved on to other things, he surprised me by demanding I write his story. That’s how the prequel to the series got written after everything else. Talk about out of order!

But that wasn’t planned. And those anomalies don’t change what happens when I sit down to write.

Now, I admire the folks who can plot out their books. But I’m good not being one of them.

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

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Do you write your stories start to finish, or do you write scenes out of order and then assemble them in the proper order?

Farewell NaNoWriMo #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

April 14, 2025

It’s official. The NaNoWriMo organization (National Novel Writing Month) is shutting down.

What’s your reaction?

My first attempt at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was in 2011. I’ve talked about it before, but I didn’t “win” that year. The goal is to write 50,000 words in November, and I made it to 49,000 words, but the story ended and I didn’t have more words to add.

It was my first attempt at writing fiction, and I wasn’t satisfied. But I was also hooked. I rewrote that story four or five times, including changing point of view twice, before I gave it up. Not because it was bad, but because it was too derivative of someone else’s work. That story is archived now, and will never be resurrected.

I tried again the next year, and “won.” I made it to over 50,000 words and had an almost complete story. After finishing it, I started the process of revision. But the writing was stiff, and it needed a lot of work. I set it aside, ready to work on the next story that was tumbling around in my head. I’ve won several times, but eventually stopped participating because I had other writing to do.

It’s a shame to see NaNoWriMo come to an end.

The challenge helped a lot of people get a taste of writing, and the rewards for winning assisted writers in developing their skills. But all good things come to an end. I haven’t delved into the details, but I understand that it has to do with opinions on the use of AI in writing. (We’ve previously discussed that topic on this hop.) I worried about how AI would affect writers, but shutting down NaNo wasn’t part of it.

I predict there will be efforts to replace NaNoWriMo with something similar. Probably more than one. I can’t imagine any of them will be as successful as the original. (Think about the number of attempts to compete with Facebook.)

How do the other authors feel about NoNoWriMo shutting down? Find out by following the links below.

As always, please stay safe until the next time.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


April 14, 2025

It’s official. The NaNoWriMo organization (National Novel Writing Month) is shutting down. What’s your reaction?