Real Life, Updates, Upcoming Christmas Short

I've been slow to update my blog in the past, but I've really been bad lately. There are reasons that don't just have to do with writing. I'm not one to discuss personal stuff here, and I won't be going into detail, but suffice it to say that things have been a bit crazy these past few weeks. 

I am heavily into editing Saving Travis and a new Christmas short, Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer. Travis will be published (hopefully) mid to late December. Willy should be out in a few days. Saving Travis needed quite a bit of revising, so my apologies to all who have asked when it will be released. As far as Willy is concerned, this story was written in June or July for a submission call for a publisher. The special call looked interesting so I figured, what the hell? I can totally write a story for that. I wrote it and submitted it long before the deadline. 15 weeks, and a lot of run around later, I finally sent a quick message to the publisher advising them to remove the story from consideration. I've dealt with publishers away from my writing and 99.9% of them are extremely professional. This one? Not even close. I should have known not to submit to them. They aren't exactly known for professionalism, but I did it anyway. One message - from the head editor I might add - had a misspelled word in it. I should have pulled the story right then and there, but I waited. After one message after another was ignored, I finally sent the email advising them to remove it from consideration. I've still yet to hear back. I think it's safe to say that another of my stories will never be submitted for consideration to these people. I wasted several weeks waiting to hear back one way or another when I could have tweaked it and published it myself. 

A yes or no would have worked for me. This is not me being a bitch because a story was rejected. I had another (to be revised and self-pubbed at a later date) story rejected by a different publisher who showed the utmost of professionalism and showed me in detail what needed to be changed for me to better the story. In regards to Willy, I was in limbo because I literally heard nothing from these people other than one (badly written) response back saying they were going over stories and I would hear back from them soon. That was around 2 months ago. Since then? No yes. No "We're sorry, but your story sucks". No anything. I'm not naming names - that's not me at all - but the way they handled my story was extremely unprofessional. I was on hold all that time when I should have pulled it months before. Live and learn.

So, here I am 16 weeks later and I'm trying to get the story ready to be published. My goal was this weekend. That won't be happening because I had a family emergency that pulled me away from everything over the past 7 or 8 days. My son got extremely ill and was hospitalized. There were a few touch and go moments, but he's recovering now. Throw in Thanksgiving and selfish family members who cared more about me hosting the event at my house than my son, and well, you see it's been a rough week or so for me. I'm all good now, for the most part, so hopefully I can get back to normal in my real world and my writing one. 

I will be working on the final touches of Willy's story today and Sunday (Saturday will be ALL about college football) and am aiming for Monday or Tuesday for it to be published. It's a kinky little gay short. I hope you all enjoy it. I had a blast writing it. I'll have another blog post about it soon.

Another quick note... to all my followers on social media - you guys rock. I've been forced (see above) to disappear for awhile, but everyone has stuck by me and I've even gotten some nice messages asking if I'm okay. I have no words for how much I appreciate all of you. I never could have imagined how amazing the indie community would be on Twitter. I'm in awe and amazed daily. So again, thank you. 

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you enjoyed yours with your family. If you were brave enough to fight Black Friday sales? I hope you got what you wanted without injury and too much frustration. I was cuddled up with my man enjoying a much needed break from the real world for awhile.

I'll be updating with another post soon in regards to Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer. I want to give those kinky guys their own blog post without them getting lost in the other stuff. I think they deserve it. I hope you guys do as well. 

Along with the Christmas eye candy, I added Willy's cover. What do you think?

~Candi