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Guest posts

Share the Love

When I first starting blogging I was blown away by this special community of writers, and I still feel thankful every day to be part of it. We support and encourage. We have each other’s backs. We pick each other up after a heartbreak rejection, critique, or poor review. Dust each other off and encourage one another to move forward. We laugh and cry, share wins and losses. To my knowledge, no other community does that.

Doing my part to share the love, I’ve invited a special guest–a guest unlike any who’ve come before.

Anyone familiar with this site knows I’m a crime lover through and through. But there’s one particular robot who stole a piece of my heart. Her name is Lisa Burton and she’s C. S. Boyack’s personal assistant and spokesmodel for his blog. She even has her own paper dolls, which you can print from his site.

On his blog you’ll find awesomely creative stories involving Lisa and Craig at his fictional writer’s cabin. If you’ve never visited Craig’s site, I highly recommend it. In the sidebar he has the Idea Mill, where he gathers interesting articles for fodder for stories. Even if your blood runs crime, you won’t be disappointed.

The reason I’m telling you this is because Craig has a new book coming out on 9/15/15, available for pre-order now. The Experimental Notebook of C.S. Boyack has over a dozen short stories as well as micro-fiction, and it’s only .99 cents. Here’s the link to reserve your copy: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014S2BA4U. It will be delivered the day it releases, on 9/15/15.

To show you how deliciously creative these stories are I’m linking to one of my favorites, entitled Jack O’ Lantern, part of his Macabre Macaroni series, which first appeared on his site last October. Click the link and you’ll know exactly why I chose it. *wink* Matter of fact, it was this story that first brought me to his site.

Share the love

Instead of inviting Craig, I have the lovely Lisa Burton here. How a man gets any work done with her around remains a mystery.

Hey, Lisa. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for inviting me over today, Sue. Since my novel ended, I’ve worked as Craig’s personal assistant around the writing cabin. He promoted me to be the official spokesmodel for his blog, Entertaining Stories. This means making guest appearances, and posing for promotional materials like the paper dolls on his blog.

All during this time, I’ve been bugging him to write my sequel. He probably never will, but he relented and gave me a short story in his new book, The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack.

My story takes place after the end of my novel, but in a different timeline than the blog uses. I’m living incognito, and hating it. I’m loaded with all kinds of police hardware, and it’s just a waste now. I went from solving a string of murders to being an outcast overnight. Then some knucklehead plants a bomb in the hospital. The police send for a bomb defusing robot, but it winds up in the river. I didn’t really have a lot of choice after that.

I picked up a couple of cute outfits in the story. I even got to wear one when I posed for a promotional piece for Craig’s next novel. You guys might get to see it in December or January.

Craig chooses the titles, so my story is called Bombshell Squad. I can’t say much more about it, because it is a short story, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

He wants me to tell everyone that short stories are making a big comeback, thanks to self publishing. Big publishers want novels, and short stories nearly died out. He’s way excited about this book, and it includes some pretty fun stuff.

Craig calls himself a speculative fiction author. He dabbles in science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal stories. He included all of these in his “Notebook.” It isn’t illustrated, but it’s almost like an old issue of Heavy Metal Magazine. Of course you have to know, robot girls are all about the science fiction.

The advance readers were all pretty positive about the end product. Each of them provided a list of their favorites, and every list was different. This is a good sign for all the stories, because every one of them was somebody’s favorite.

Craig hopes this book can serve as a gateway to his novels. It’s priced so readers will take a chance, and he even included a free sample of Will O’ the Wisp in the back material. Patty Hall is so nice, I think readers will love her too. (Note from Sue: I start reading Will O’ the Wisp tomorrow. Yay!)

So, take a chance on The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack. It’s available on Amazon right now for pre-order. Stop by the blog and visit us sometime. All of my appearances are linked under the Muse category in the sidebar. I have a couple of pieces of artwork posting soon to promote “Notebook.”

Now I’d probably better get back to the writing cabin. I swear, being Craig’s personal assistant is kind of like being his keeper some days. Check out this picture of what happened the last time I left him alone for a day. (Note from Sue: guess who the snail is?)image2

Thank you so much for the invitation, Sue. Craig said his blog space is yours any time you want it.

Aww, that’s so nice of him. Thanks again for joining us, Lisa. You’re welcome back anytime.

Please share the love by showing your support.

craig

“No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.” ~ Plutarch
Check out his novels:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00ILXBXUY
Add his books to your TBR list on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9841203.C_S_Boyack

Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org named her Murder Blog as “Best 100 Crime Blogs on the Net.” She also blogs on the Kill Zone (Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers"), Writers Helping Writers, and StoryEmpire. Sue lives with her husband in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Her backlist includes psychological thrillers, the Mayhem Series (books 1-3) and Grafton County Series, and true crime/narrative nonfiction. Now, she exclusively writes eco-thrillers, Mayhem Series (books 4-9 and continuing). Sue's appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion, and three episodes of A Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery. When she's not writing, she loves spending time with her murder of crows, who live free but come when called by name. And nature feeds her soul.

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