Some book love

Will O’ the Wisp got some book love recently. I love the idea that these older stories still attract readers from time to time. Pete from this book makes occasional appearances in The Hat series, and I have plans to have Patty show up as well.

Will O’ the Wisp

by C.S. Boyack

“Will O’ the Wisp” is a YA paranormal tale that focuses on fifteen-year-old Patty Hall. The Hall family seems to have been cursed, and Patty is determined to find out why. I love that this story is set in the 1970s. The high school dance and well-placed details of that era brought back some memories. The strained relationship between Patty and her mother is realistic, and Patty’s rebellious side is portrayed nicely, especially with wearing her leg braces. That side of her not only showed her determination, but her inner strength that’s needed to overcome evil. There were some truly terrifying parts, but there was also friendship, trust, and family. I could relate to Patty’s position that no one, other than her two friends, would believe her. If you like a teen protagonist with some horror and a strong female character, this book is for you. Five-Stars! Check out the entire post here.

Some Yak and Wisp love

A couple of my titles got some love this week. Stop by Tori’s place and see what she thought about them.

#AmReading + #AmWatching – May 30th 2019 #Reviews

It’s time to take a look at what I’ve been reading and watching during this past week.

If you want to know more about the book, or the author, click on whichever it is you want to learn more about, and it will take you to the appropriate page on Goodreads. Clicking on my rating should take you to my actual Goodreads review for the book in question. Please bear in mind that the format I’ve reviewed on Goodreads may not be the format I actually read.

Read the rest of Tori’s post.

Hallo-WE-en features Will O’ the Wisp

Will O’ the Wisp is a paranormal tale from C. S. Boyack. It involves a mildly handicapped girl facing a mysterious threat. The wisp has been killing off Patty Hall’s family for generations, and she’s next on the list. It is suitable for young adult readers. It’s a perfect Halloween read.

All stories involve some kind of research. I set this story in 1974, because I wanted Patty to use her wits, and display a bit of patience in revealing this story. Suspense is a great story technique, and having high speed internet would have spoiled some of the fun.

Keep reading here…

Out my office window again

It gets hard to find stuff to post about during the work week, without discussing work itself. It isn't going to be a problem tonight.

My office is right along what's called Hunter Creek. It flows into the Boise River just beyond my office. For those who don't know, the river is a fabulous part of Boise. There are paths on either side called The Greenbelt, and you can walk, cycle, and jog for miles along a beautiful wooded riverbank.

The Greenbelt makes a pretty good corridor for wildlife, and I've seen all kinds of stuff there. Some of you may remember a large mule deer buck I posted months ago.

The creek was covered with wood ducks today, but the weeds are too high to take pictures. This guy showed up this morning and saved the day.

I must have taken a dozen photos, but only one where his face showed up that turned out okay. Not too bad with an iPhone through a plate glass window.

He hung around for a while, and scoped out the weeds for mice or other rodents. I never saw him catch any though. I have seen them catch tree squirrels before, and it amazes me they even can.

I rarely get a picture to share, but I've seen beavers, muskrats, coyotes, mink, and dozens of kinds of ducks. (Those mink are tough to get pictures of.) We get deer all the time. It seems like every winter Fish & Wildlife removes a mountain lion downtown somewhere. I don't recommend jogging in the dark.

Anyway, this little guy made my day. Hope you had a good one too.

Oh yeah, this is a writing blog. If you like foxes, you might enjoy a character in Will O' the Wisp. Click on my author page in the sidebar. (Shameless promotion over for today.)

The Last Day of October

Hey all, it’s Nevada Day. We used to get the day off from school and everything when I was a kid. Of course, I grew up in Nevada.

It’s also Halloween, of course. Do you know how awesome it was to get Halloween off from school every year?

Alright, enough reminiscing. Time for some promotion. I promised myself I’d do some promo all during October. This is the one I never planned upon. See, I signed up for a couple of book blasts and one of them requires a sale. They suggested 99¢ or free.

I elected to make Will O’ the Wisp free for one day to support the book blasts. I’m kind of spastic, so it will probably extend to November 1st. For a little bit of insight as to why I chose free, visit my turn at the blog over at Story Empire. This is where I assess my personal promotional efforts throughout the month, and it’s aimed more at authors.

I set this up through Amazon.com and Amazon.UK. The promo just isn’t an option elsewhere. Here are the universal links for the book: North American Continent http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UPH6BNS Rest of the world http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UQNDT2C

I promise this will be the last promotional thing for a while. I dedicated October to this process, and I have to see it through.

Will O’ the Wisp is the journey of Patty Hall. She’s a teenager growing up in the 1970s in rural Virginia.

Patty has to deal with being a teenager and growing up with a mild handicap. She faces all the social stigmas you might expect, and then there is the odd thing in the woods trying to kill her.

Take a chance on Will O’ the Wisp for the price of free. I doubt it will ever be this low again.

Thanks for putting up with me through all of this. A writer has to do this from time to time, and I’m looking forward to getting back to my writing in November.

 

Partial chill today

I don't know that I ever take a day for myself, not completely. I decided not to hit it too hard today though. This is my flex day for the week, and I had the house to myself.

Otto hasn't been sleeping at night this week. Is suspect my son makes him sleep all day so he doesn't have to walk him or deal with him. Otto started his day at 2:00 AM today. I decided to get up with him, so my wife could sleep. She had to answer the alarm clock about an hour later, but I did what I could. I'm going to be talking to my son.

This led to hours of pumpkin ball play, and I decided to try out the slow motion video on my new camera. It works better with a thrower that just lets me film. I posted one on my own and one after my wife got home. You can see them at the Entertaining Stories Facebook page.

Of course, after my wife got on the road, Otto went to sleep. Why wouldn't he, he'd been awake all night. I took advantage of the time to finish reading a book. There is something so perfect about the dark hours before sunrise.

I woke him up for another game of pumpkin ball, because I want him sleepy tonight. While we played, I turned on some Loony Toons cartoons, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I don't think I have to have children in the house to watch Wabbit Season.

During the cool down, I took advantage and worked up three shticks for Lisa Burton Radio. Once those were in the mail, we played with another of Otto's toys for a while. When I checked the mail, one of the radio interview is already back.

I did my typical blog skimming, checked Facebook and Twitter. Then I wrote out a bit of micro-fiction. This is for my possible baseball book, called The Enhanced League. I'm trying to make all the stories fit together, albeit loosely. This makes it hard to use the twist endings I enjoy so much. There are a few, but not as frequently as I'd prefer. I have no idea what I'll do with it eventually. Right now it keeps me in fiction until I can dedicate some real time to my novel.

I also scheduled my next post over at Story Empire. It's kind of a loose assessment of all the things I tried during October to get readers to look my way. These things are beyond what the Story Empire crowd is doing together. The post is scheduled for somewhere around midnight on Halloween.

Speaking of Story Empire, the big tour is still going on, and so are the scavenger hunts. If you haven't entered yet, all you have to do is answer a couple of questions you can find the answers to on our site. You don't have to actually visit all the tour host sites. Ten gift cards and five ebooks are up for grabs, and you could win from multiple authors.

Also speaking of Story Empire, we are doing a couple of book blasts on Halloween. They're all paranormal stories to some degree, so it makes sense. For one of the blasts, they require either a discount or a free day. I hadn't planned on it, but I set Will O' the Wisp up as free all that day. The links will be in my post at Story Empire after it loads. Reminder: I also set it up in the UK store, because I love you guys too. So if you didn't win in the giveaway, I'm giving you an unplanned second chance.

I managed all this before 2:00 this afternoon. You can get a lot done when you start at 2:00 AM. I'll probably take a nap, and tonight we're having date night somewhere. No doubt the World Series will be involved somewhere along the line. Maybe I can find my own version of pumpkin (beer) along the way.

Will O’ the Wisp, on Lisa Burton Radio #RRBC

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Burton Radio. I’m your host, Lisa Burton the robot girl, and my very special guest today is Patty Hall. “Welcome to the show, Patty.”

“Thank you Miss Burton, it’s an honor to be here.”

“Oh please, call me Lisa. Tell our audience how old you are.”

“Okay, Lisa, I’m fifteen and live in rural Virginia. High School class of 1978, if I make it.”

“We’ll get to that last remark in a minute. You live with a certain disability, why don’t you tell our listeners about that. If that’s okay.”

“It’s alright. My mother makes me wear corrective leg braces. They aren’t any worse than lots of other people, and it’s embarrassing to wear them. They’ve made me a social outcast at school.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that. You seem to have some pretty solid friends to me.”

“Pete and Laura are the best. I suppose if that’s all the friends I can have, at least I have the best.”

“I think so too. Now, you ran into a bit of trouble out in the forest, what’s that all about.”

“We’re all into star gazing. We like to look at the constellations, planets, satellites, that kind of thing. One night we saw this glowing green thingie floating through the woods. It attacked this college boy who was camping for the night. It was terrible.”

“It sounds horrible. Did you ever determine what it was?”

“It’s called a Will O’ the Wisp, and it’s more awful than you think. It went into this boy’s body and made him sick. It controlled him and made him kill my uncle. Then it made the boy drown on dry land. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like his body filled up with water and killed him.

“And that’s not the worst of it. Another one attacked one of my Mom’s friends, and she’s trying to kill me.”

“Have you told anyone about it? Maybe there’s some kind of protection available.”

“Are you kidding me. Pete and I both saw it, but nobody is going to believe us. Laura says she does, but I can tell she’s trying to be a friend. My mother would have me talking to a shrink so fast– I mean, I’m thinking about running away, but I’m afraid it would follow me.”

“You mean your mom’s friend?”

“Yeah, her, but if she drowns I think there will be another one.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know, I think it must be alien, but that’s as much as I know. It isn’t like H. G. Well’s virus is showing up to kill off the aliens for me. All I know is that it came from up Bergamot Holler. If I can find where it comes from, I might figure out how to stop it. Except my mother wants me to stay away from Bergamot Holler. She says weird things happen up there. I found out some of my ancestors died up there too, and one of them drowned on dry land.

“I mean, what if there’s an alien ship buried up there and they’re mad at my family? I don’t know. It’s all making my hair fall out, and my nose bleed.”

“It sounds dangerous to me too. It would be hard walking through the woods with leg braces, then doing it at night with something dangerous in the woods.”

“I’m kind of used to it. The woods are where we watch for satellites. My mother is making me wear these things to the Homecoming dance. I don’t even want to go, but she’s forcing me. It’s embarrassing to show up without a date. I mean, who’s going to ask the girl with braces? Then if anyone dances with me it will just be to make a joke or show off to their friends.”

“Maybe she knows you can’t go back and do it later. High School is kind of a one shot deal.”

“No thank you. I’d rather wait until college. I’ll be out of these stupid braces then. That’s assuming I live that long.”

“So what would you study?”

“I want to be an astronaut. Bent legs won’t make any difference in space, and they might even be an advantage. The Soviets have lady Cosmonauts, how much longer can the US hold out? I think if I work hard, I could be one of the first ones.”

“I think you can too, if you study hard. In the mean time, get some help and try to avoid the Will O’ the Wisp.”

“It’s not the wisp that’s trying to kill me. It’s Mrs. Matthews who’s being controlled by the wisp. Can you imagine Mom’s reaction if I accuse her friend?”

“That could be a problem–”

“Yeah, and protective custody doesn’t look too good on a college application, or an application to NASA.”

“Thank you for joining us today, Patty, and I hope you figure it all out soon.”

“Thank you, Miss Lisa.”

“Our sponsor today is Will O’ the Wisp by our own C. S. Boyack. I’ll include all the details on the website. For Lisa Burton Radio, I’m Lisa Burton.”

***

There is something evil up Bergamot Holler, and it’s been targeting the Hall family for generations.

Patty Hall is fifteen years old. She loves stargazing, science fiction, and all things related to space exploration. This leaves her perfectly prepared for the wrong problem.

Patty is afraid her mother will send her to a care facility if she tells her what she’s seen. If she doesn’t figure things out soon, she’s going to join her father in the Hall family cemetery plot.

Patty has to come to grips with her own physical handicap, survive the wilderness, and face an ancient evil all alone if she’s going to survive.

Will O’ the Wisp is suitable for young adults. It involves strong elements of suspense, and is set in the mid 1970s.

This book is available in two different versions, depending upon where you live.

North American Continent http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UPH6BNS

Rest of the world http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UQNDT2C

The Ballad of Monday

Otto wanted to get up at 5:00 this morning. I walked him, but convinced him to go back to bed for another hour or so. Sometimes it works, and I got lucky today.

I ran through my favorite blog sites, checked and answered emails by the ton, and flipped through a cool magazine my mother sent me. I may save the magazine for inclusion in a future Idea Mill post.

I started a special project with a fellow author, but it really requires a minimal effort. We're still working on it, but it won't require a ton of time.

Sean Harrington shared a book cover he made on his Deviantart site. This one is for the Zombie Zero series, and the specific title is The Zombie Killers. I want to share it here, but respect that the art doesn't belong to me. Therefore, I'm including the link. (Link)

Sean is good at his job. I love the contrasts between light and detailed vs dark and foggy. The allocation of space makes the girl feel more trapped. The thin door, the look on the character's face, it's just wonderful.

Along about mid-day, I'd played about four rounds of pumpkin ball. The bottom is nearly torn completely off. I put Otto's harness on and we both went to PetCo. It's about a 40 minute drive, and another 40 to get home again. (Depending upon the traffic.)

He really enjoyed everyone who wanted to see the bulldog, and the smells of the dog food aisle. He checked out a plush toy in one of the bins, but never got too excited … until we found the bin of pumpkin balls. This time I grabbed two, and a squeaky rat just for good measure.

I'll hold one pumpkin ball in reserve, and gave him the other one right away.

I don't know if it shows up, but there is a flashing light inside a new pumpkin ball. It activates with motion, and makes Otto pretty crazy. The old one wore out after about a week. Turns out, he really likes the rat too. He keeps bringing it to me, but doesn't seem particularly interested in fetching it. Apparently, that activity is reserved for pumpkin ball. I don't know what the rules of rat play are, but am trying to learn.

After a few more rounds of pumpkin ball, and being required to squeak the rat, I decided to check my Amazon Giveaway. I set this up to last two weeks as a way of supporting the blog tour over at The Paranormal Bar & Grille. It isn't going to work out quite that way.

As of a moment ago, I've already given out four of the five available copies, and expect them all to be gone tomorrow morning. If you want to try winning a copy of Will O' the Wisp, you'd better enter PDQ. Here is the link.

The giveaway worked better than expected. It's hard to complain when something exceeds my expectations. Five new people will get a copy of Will O' the Wisp, and the giveaway netted exposure.

So what amazing stunt can I pull to bring my promos up to Halloween? The blog tour is ongoing, and I entered a book blast on Halloween day. The blast requires a discount of some kind, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do there. I don't feel inclined to run another Amazon giveaway. It worked, and it worked out better than the 99¢ sale did.

I really don't have any Thursday guests for the immediate future of Lisa Burton Radio. I may shoehorn something together with Patty Hall just to keep the posts going, but it might spread the love for Lisa Burton Radio and for Will O' the Wisp.

One of the takeaways here is to contact me if you want to have a character interview on Lisa Burton Radio. The spots have been growing in popularity, but you have to step up.

Back to the paycheck job tomorrow. I goofed off compared to my normal weekend routine, but I managed to read some short stories and wrote one of my own. I had a lot of fun with Otto, and I worked on several Lisa Burton Radio posts for the November timeframe. Not a lot on the writing front, but I kind of needed a weekend like that.

Did some work late last night

I spent a considerable amount of time goofing off yesterday. Two baseball games, a movie with my son, and the last half of the Boise State football game. (Who tries three onsides kicks in a row? Colorado, that's who.)

I went ahead and setup the Amazon Giveaway for Will O' the Wisp. The 99¢ sale for The Playground didn't give me much confidence, but the Amazon contest might generate some interest.

This one is probably the most Halloween-like story in my catalog. That's why I waited for late in the month. I pulled out all my suspense techniques and used them here.

This is the story of a fifteen year old girl, Patty Hall, growing up in a small farming community in the 1970s. I've gotten nearly as many positive comments about the trip down memory lane as about the rest of the story. This setting resonates with a lot of people.

It's also a coming of age story. The character arc is strong in this one, and responses to this part of the tale are also positive.

Aside from the window dressing, there is a pretty good paranormal tale involving an ancient curse, and the strong possibility that Patty might not survive.

This book is not aimed at the young adult market, but it is suitable for them. It's more Goosebumps than Stephen King.

This is the book I'm pushing as part of the blog tour the Story Empire authors are going on this month.

To support all of that, I set up the Amazon Giveaway. This means I bought five copies of the book, all you have to do is enter and you might win one.

Honestly, this is more about getting the title in front of fresh eyes. My regulars already know about this one, and most of you bought it and read it. Still, contests are fun, and maybe you want to share it with someone.

This is the link to enter the Amazon Giveaway. I set the odds at one in seventy, and when I woke up one book had already been awarded.

On the other hand, maybe you don't want to delay your Halloween reading. Maybe you live outside the USA and can't participate in the contest. I published two different versions of this book, because one uses copywrite protected song lyrics. I could only obtain a license in North America. Believe me the difference is about one paragraph.

Here are the purchase links:

North American Continent http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UPH6BNS

Rest of the world http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B00UQNDT2C

That's the new event for this week. If the trend continues, I should award all five books in five days. I ran the promo until the 30th, but I may have to come up with something else if they all award this week.

The Scavenger Hunts are still going on for the Paranormal Bar & Grille promotion. There are ten Amazon gift cards and five ebooks at stake here, so get into the hunt. This is the link to the Scavenger Hunts. I have enough entrants to award all my prizes, but the odds of winning are incredible right now. Scroll to the bottom of the page and use the individual author links to enter. Enter all of them and your chances of winning go through the roof.

While you're there, the link to the tour is in the middle of the page. Click that one and scroll to the bottom. There is a rafflecopter for a $30 Amazon gift card you can enter too. This doesn't even require the effort of a scavenger hunt.

I have a new Lisa Burton Radio victim and need to start that process today. I may also check into the Steelers Game and the Cubs are playing the Dodgers today too.

Does anyone know of some additional promotion I could do for next week. I've already used free days for Panama, 99¢ sale for The Playground, the contests for Will O' the Wisp. What's new out there that I haven't tried?

 

Welcome October

I love October. I've been bouncing around in cyberspace and may have said that a few other places. This month, I'm going to be hitting promotion hard. The last two weeks of September I had time to take on even more stuff. I spent it filling out forms, answering interview questions, etc.

I'm going to miss that September wallpaper though. Let's take one last look at Lisa goofing off with the rocket-pack before we retire it completely.

I found a cool image of bats flying in front of a full moon to use this month, but another of my blog friends is using the exact same image. How about some pumpkins. If I find something else, I may change it again.

I also went back to the Will O' the Wisp banner image for a while. That's an October story, and fits with the overall theme. If I find a cool monster, maybe I can shoehorn it into the Moai graphic somehow.

I filled out another interview sheet, and sent out a final proof for this week's Lisa Burton Radio before I decided to write this. Basically, I've been sending out excerpts, covers, reading copies and such for weeks.

Will it all work? I have no idea, but I intend to meet some new people this month. The basic idea is that I have three novels that might qualify as Halloween reading. There are plenty of similar tales in the Experimental Notebooks too. What better time to try promoting them than right now.

My friends at Story Empire are banding together to push all of our paranormal tales in a massive blog tour (or two). I'm almost certain to post about it, but might not do it until next weekend.

I need to write and schedule my Monday and Tuesday posts this weekend. If I get the Lisa Burton Radio stuff in time, I will use the scheduler for that too. My paycheck job is sending me to Coeur d'Alene for a week, and blogging time will be limited. The scheduler is wonderful under those circumstances.

That will leave Wednesday open, and I might be able to post some pictures from CDA or something.

Some of the best things about this kind of promotion are the hosts themselves. Not everyone is open to hosting an author. I try to reblog the posts as a way of supporting them. An enterprising author might visit them too, just to make the connection. It might even be worth adding a note or two to any living documents you keep about bloggers willing to host authors. Then when you need them, you'll have a starting place.

Most of this promotion stuff involves work in advance. After sending the kit out, all that remains is participating in the comments and sharing across social media. By hitting it hard in September, and the first parts of October, I may be able to coast a bit in the second half of the month.

It's still early yet, and I can take on a few more projects as long as they're small. If you need to fill slots on an October themed event, or are opening up some paranormal slots keep me in mind. I'm willing to return the favor and host people here too. My preferred method is Lisa Burton Radio, but I've hosted cover reveals and such too.