October, 2025 - P.J. MacLayne

Bigfoot & Giants & Red Eyes, OH MY! #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 27, 2025 October 27, 2025 Open Book

October 27, 2025

What is the best known cryptid in your area?

Or your favorite one? (A cryptid is an animal whose existence is disputed or unverified by science, known only through folklore and anecdotal evidence like eyewitness accounts )

I’m lucky enough to be on a committee with local Paranormal Enthusiast/Cryptovania’s Data Wrangler, Jason Trost. He’s been researching phenomena in the area for a decade.

The closest to a local cryptid that he could identify is Red Eyes. Not the Red Eyes from other localities, this one seems to be related to Bigfoot. What is more interesting is the ties to specific locations, especially the historic Miller Farm area. (Which is now part of the Oil Creek State Park.) A group of teenage boys who saw a creature described it as all white, over 6 feet tall, with arms, legs, and glowing eyes. The encounter was documented in a local newspaper.

And then there are giants.

Which I find more interesting. The theory is that there was a race of giants that lived in the area and were responsible for creating mounds in both Pennsylvania and Ohio. There is also speculation that they created the pits that were enclosed by timber and served as a way to collect oil from the local waterway, today known as Oil Creek. (Because when white settlers moved in, there was so much oil in the ground that it actually coated the surface of the water in the creek. The Native Americans used it for hair care and medicinal purposes.) Note: This area is the home of the first commercial oil well.

The mounds in Ohio have been explored and various items, including copper sheets, have been found. There is controversary among scholars about the builders. The Native Americans tribes who inhabited the area don’t have stories about it. (Or don’t share.) What I find most interesting is that there is overlap between the arrival of the first European settlers and the end of the era of the giants.

How about our other authors? What cryptids do they want to share? Check out the links below to find out.

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

October 27, 2025

What is the best known cryptid in your area? Or your favorite one? (A cryptid is an animal whose existence is disputed or unverified by science, known only through folklore and anecdotal evidence like eyewitness accounts )

Best Recent Line #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 19, 2025 October 19, 2025 Open Book

October 20, 2025

What is the best line/s that you’ve written recently?

I’ve recently returned to the first draft of a book I started over a year ago.

It’ll be the second book in the Edwards Investigations series. I took a long break from it to write a short story for an anthology. (The anthology will be released mid-November. Stay tuned for more information!)

I’m at a point where I’m trying to decide whether my second victim is going to live or die. It’s still up in the air. I’m not sure which will serve the plot better.

So, I went back to the beginning to look for my best lines. Please remember these lines are unedited.

I’m fond of the first paragraph, but knowing how first paragraphs go, it’ll change.

Another night, another cheating husband, but the bar, The Squirrel’s Nest, was a repeat. From her stool, Annie McGregor nursed her mug of Iron City beer and a hamburger as she tracked Wayne Zabrinski in the mirror. He was having no luck getting the attention of the gaggle of college-aged girls who inhabited two of the tables.

But that isn’t my favorite.

This is. It is so characteristic of Annie (my main character, a female PI in Pittsburgh, PA in the mid 1980s) that it sets the tone for what comes next.

It wasn’t the first time that Annie had sat on a curb waiting for the cops to interview her, but at least this time she wasn’t in handcuffs. In fact, her hands were tucked into her coat sleeves, trying to keep them warm. A pile of crumbled tissues lay on the sidewalk beside her; she’d used them to scrub as much blood as possible from her hands.

There you have it. Makes me want to get back to my work in progress.

What do the other authors have to share? As good as they are, I’m looking forward to their work Check out the links below.

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

October 20, 2025

Quilting Together The News #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 12, 2025 October 13, 2025 Open Book

October 13, 2025

Do you think the rise of independent media is taking over from corporate media?

For instance, the news is increasingly going independent, providing a level of legitimacy to written independent media.

Back in the dark ages, when I was in high school, each week we had a front-page news quiz based on the local paper. It would be basic questions like, where is the hurricane predicted to hit? Or who is the president of Ghana? Just the news, no commentary. The local paper covered international, national, and local news. Just the news, no commentary, except on the editorial page. Of course, there was always Walter Cronkite, delivering the evening news.

When CNN first started as a news channel, it was the news. Twenty-four hours a day. Back then, it covered both national and international topics. I had it on all day, every day, as background noise as I went about my life.

But independent news was happening on a small scale. Community organizations passed out flyers on street corners. Nationwide, alternative groups produced magazines that were distributed by subscription and on newsstands.

Then, the internet happened.

It wasn’t an immediate change, but text-based channels spread different points of view from the mainstream companies. At first, they couldn’t be trusted, as much of what was posted was from unreliable sources. Then, the big companies started filling in the gaps, and we didn’t have to wait for the paper or the news on TV to get information. But the mistrust we’d developed for anything on the internet extended to the big companies.

The news today (at least in the US) is a mess. It’s all filtered through political leanings. No one source can be considered trustworthy. Not only do people need to research the topics they are interested in, they have to look into the reputation of the people posting it. So much of what can be found is no better than a bit of information that has been put through a game of telephone—rumor and innuendo. If it hasn’t been made up entirely.

Do I think that independent news is taking over from mainstream media?

Short answer – no. I believe we’re in a transition phase, trying to find a balancing point between the two. I’m unsure of what the current state of the news will morph into. At some point, I suspect the smaller sources will fall away, just like so many small newspapers have closed. And when was the last time an organization handed out a newsletter on the street corner? (Has social media taken over that function?)

There’s also new technology to consider in the equation. How will a site’s algorithms affect what news you see? When will someone create a tool to defeat them? And with AI creating news, not just reporting it, how can we be sure what we read is accurate?

Now, how does this translate to media in general? As far as music and movies go, there’s so much money involved that I don’t know how independents can break the barriers involved. As authors, we know how that works. Without the money to buy publicity, or the right connections, it feels like a battle we can’t win. Yet many of us keep trying.

How do the others on this hop feel? Find out by following the links below.

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

October 13, 2025

Do you think the rise of independent media is taking over from corporate media? For instance, the news is increasingly going independent, providing a level of legitimacy to written independent media.

The Lows and the Highs #OpenBook Blog Hop

By P.J. MacLayne October 5, 2025 October 6, 2025 Open Book

October 6, 2025

Did you face any hiccups in your publishing this year?

How did you navigate that?

Confession: I haven’t published anything major this year – yet. Yes, I’ve posted on my blog regularly, but this year has been a mixed bag in my writing journey. I even tried taking my writing to Medium, but couldn’t get any traction there. It made me feel like writing was a chore, not a joy.

The high point is that I’ve sold 90 books at festivals and book events. (And I have two craft shows scheduled before the end of the events.)

The low point is that I haven’t published a new book this year. And the book I published in November 2024 has gone nowhere, despite using a alternative route for publicity. (That didn’t work.) It didn’t help that the print copies of the Rimer Files were delayed and weren’t available for the last show of last year.)

On the bright side, I wrote a short story that will be part of an anthology to be released in November. The 10,000 words took me close to five months to complete. I rewrote the first 3000 words four times before I was satisfied with where the story was going. Once I finished, I was reluctant to let go of my protagonist, Amos Headley. There is so much more he could tell me.

Overall, it was a rough year.

At times, I felt like giving up. But my characters wouldn’t let me. Same for my readers. When one customer bought 9 of my books all at once, it gave me a needed push. But so did the readers who bought the entire Harmony Duprie series on line, all at once. Or one at a time, across one or two weeks.

But mostly, this year was a year of digging deep and staying with it.

How about all of you? How has your publishing year gone? I’ll be looking forward to the answers at the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.