Done, Almost Done, Upcoming

Character Inspiration

I can't recall the last time in my life where I've written as much as I have over the past few weeks. Believe me, that's a good thing. I had gotten a bit burnt out after the release of Saving Travis back in February so I'm thrilled that burn-out is behind me. To the folks who asked about Finding Alex (the final story in the Taking Lance series), it has been put on hold for a bit. I've written around 20,000 words of it so far, but it still has a long way to go. I'll likely pick it up again this month. I needed to step away from that world for a little while.

Some updates -

A new friends-to-lovers gay romance has been officially sent to my editor. It's titled Just Friends and unless my editor completely hates it (which is a big possibility), it will be released in the relatively near future. There are a couple of things I'm still iffy about in the story. If they totally suck, she'll let me know. That's the joy of having someone else in your corner. Nothing I write ever gets published without that second set of eyes. I could go on and on about how important editors or even good proofreaders are, but that's another blog post in itself, so I'll leave it at that. I'll post more updates as Just Friends gets closer to publication. I have a tentative cover done, but it still needs some tweaking so I'm not sharing yet. 

I mentioned that I've been writing like a crazy girl lately. Three of those stories are Christmas stories and are all gay romance and/or erotica. I know, I know, you're thinking "It's June. What the hell is she thinking?"

Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer is what I'm thinking.

It was written in August or September of last year, but I didn't get to really do anything with it until late November (there's a blog post on here somewhere explaining why). I remember rushing trying to get it ready to be published in time for the holiday and after that, I swore I'd never wait until the last minute again. Thankfully, these stories are basically writing themselves so I shouldn't be rushed later in the year. 

Speaking of Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer, one of these new stories takes place in that world. Willy and Randy already have their HEA and there won't be any drama between them (I'm not a fan of books that do that... *ahem! J.R. Ward*). New main characters. New story line. It will just take place in the same North Pole as that story (if you read it, you know what I'm referring to) and all the players from that book will be in this one as well, only in secondary form. I won't be screwing with Willy and Randy's relationship... ever. It will be an adult story with adult kinks and graphic sex and there will be a bit of humor, but I want a specific message to come through (in this case, bullying), just like I wanted the "love is love" message to come through in Willy's story. If it stops flowing, thankfully I have plenty of time to get it where I want it.

The second Christmas story is (unlike Willy) contemporary and involves a mall Santa, a couple of rambunctious kids and a cute guy in an elf costume.There's a bit of humor in it and more than a bit of sex. At the rate I'm going with it, it could end up being one of my longer stories.

The third one is a story that is actually already completed - in a sense. It's almost novel-length and was written last year. My editor went over it and let me know it wasn't anywhere near my best work. It was put on hold with the intention of removing the Christmas theme and rewriting it outside of the holiday. I tried that but everything kept coming back to the fact that if I removed the holiday aspects of the story, I'd have to completely rewrite two very important parts - that just so happen to be my two favorite parts of the story. I've gone back into it with fresher eyes to see what I can fix to make it a story I'm proud of. It may involve an almost complete rewrite, or it may not. Time will tell.

There's another story that's been complete for awhile, but I'm holding off on letting that one go just yet. There's something about the resolution of everything that is still bugging me. I actually finished the first draft long before Just Friends. I keep hoping to have an A ha! moment telling me exactly what's iffy about it, but it hasn't happened yet. It's another gay romance and there's a bit of an age difference between the two main characters. But then again, most of my stories have a bit of an age difference. It's one of my kinks.

I've also written about pretty much everything else you can imagine over the past few weeks, with a lot of those stories being completely outside of my norm. That has been refreshing. I'll update when things are firmed up a bit.

~

A few blog posts back I mentioned I Love Erotica, a new site that brought together a group of erotica authors. ILE is no more. I won't go into details, but as far as I know it's no longer online. A lot of time and work went into it by a lot of people so it was a shame to see it end before it ever really got started, but it is what it is.

I hope to be finishing up some of these WIPs soon and will have more to report in my next blog post. I've got a lot of stuff going on in my real world as well, but thankfully I've been able to keep up with it all (for the most part), on top of writing every chance I get. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Until next time,

~Candi Kay

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