Candi Kay

It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted anything so I thought I’d do it now while I have a few minutes.

I’m going to just go ahead and get this out of the way because it’s become a serious issue over the past few days.

I was born and raised in Alabama. That’s where my home is. That’s where I was married and where I raised my sons.

With that being said…

I didn’t vote for the corrupt governor or any of the others in Montgomery. During the campaign Kay Ivey, the governor, didn’t debate, didn’t campaign, didn’t answer any questions. You know why? Because she knew that she was going to win because of that big R next to her name. The man who ran against her for governor barely put up a campaign because he knew she would win. I’m hard pressed right now to even remember his name and I voted for the guy. Sad, huh? He gave up before he ever even got started.

Until we get candidates who are willing to fight to beat these people, we’re going to continue to go backwards. I’ve been watching it happen most of my life. It’s really sad because once upon a time I was proud of where I came from. But then the Robert Bentleys (if you don’t know who he is, Google his sordid tale) and Roy Moores came out of the woodwork and showed me just how screwed up my state really is.

Speaking of Roy Moore… he’s planning on running for office again. The sad part is that he has a lot of supporters. I’d like to say that surprises me but it really doesn’t.

I can’t go anywhere on social media without seeing bad things said about every single person in or from Alabama. Seeing it all over the place is bad. Having it aimed at me by people I don’t even know just makes me mad. And anybody who honestly believes that I think a woman should carry a rapist’s baby to term is, to be blunt, delusional. Under this new law a rapist would get less time in jail than a doctor. Also, had this law been in effect when I miscarried many, many years ago my doctor could have gone to jail over something beyond his or my control.

Does any of that make sense? Of course not.

I won’t turn this into a debate. Any messages sent or comments made trying to pull me into one won’t be responded to. And no comments on the subject will be approved on this post.

Some of the messages and comments I’ve received this week have gone beyond comments about my state. Every single person in Alabama (or the South in general) is being judged by the actions of a few. Someone in our family has had a medical emergency this week and we don’t know if they’re going to pull through. My husband and I are over a thousand miles away and can’t be there. That’s what I’m having to focus on right now, not what a few people have to say to me about where I was born.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Travel, Travel, Travel

I feel like I’ve been everywhere over the past couple of weeks. We flew home on a Saturday, drove to Florida on Sunday, flew back to Colorado on Monday, then left to drive all the way across the country on Thursday (close to 2,000 miles because we detoured for some touristy stuff). I’ve been on long road trips before but nothing quite that long. Thankfully, my husband and I are really good on road trips. This one was 3 days of driving. We’ve been together for so long, and traveled together so many times, that it’s just almost routine these days.

I love the East Coast, but it’s just so busy, you know? I’ve not ventured out alone yet. Hell, I don’t know if I could even figure out how to get out of the maze that is the parking garage.

That’s a joke… kinda. 🙂

Willy, #6

I’ve been up to my ears trying to finish the 6th installment of Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer. I hope to at least type THE END in the coming days. I’d been waiting for something to click about the story. It finally did a few nights ago. At the moment the story is around 43,000 words. I still have a couple of chapters and the Christmas party scene to write. I’m sure there will be a lot of rewritten sections before it’s said and done but at least the first draft will be completed soon.

As of now the plan is still to end the series in November of 2020 with Santa’s story. That may change, but that’s where it stands at the moment. I’m still working on who his love interest will be. Aside from that, the story – and how to end the series – is basically already written in my head.

Mother’s Day

I hope all mothers had a nice day on Sunday. I celebrated a few days before with two of my sons because of my travels. My husband took me to dinner because I couldn’t be with my sons on the actual day. It was nice but I missed them. Mother’s Day has always been bittersweet to me. I’ve always enjoyed the day as a mother, but not so much as a daughter. That’s not something I dwell on these days.

That’s it for now. I hope everybody is doing well. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Until next time,

Candi

Gabriella! who won my 5th publishing anniversary giveaway. She chose (on top of the $25 Amazon gift card) Taking Lance (the Complete Series) and all 6 e-books in Willy’s World as her winning books.

I don’t know if I should go ahead and apologize in advance for Willy the elf or offer to send her a bottle (or twelve) of Peppermint Whiskey. 😉

There were 762 total entries. Not all were valid but most were. At the end of the day Randomizer did its thing and Gabriella was chosen as the winner.

Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate my publishing anniversary and for entering the giveaway.

It’s been an amazing 5 years.

Until next time,

Candi

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rafflecopter Giveaway

There’s still a week until a winner is chosen in my 5th publishing anniversary giveaway so make sure you get your entries in. Also, share the giveaway if you know others who might be interested. The Rafflecopter link is at the bottom of this post.

For those of you signing up for email notifications – You have to confirm the subscription by clicking a link in your email. If you don’t confirm it, you’re not subscribed. If you don’t receive the confirmation email check your spam folder or shoot me a message and I’ll take care of it for you. Unless it’s confirmed (via link or a request to me) your Rafflecopter entry for that doesn’t count. If you’re unsure how to subscribe, the form is on the right of this (and every other) post or you can leave a comment anywhere and click the little box below it.

On The Road Again...

I’ve been traveling and am back in Colorado, my favorite place on the planet. We were under a blizzard warning a couple of days ago. You know what the temperature was back home that same day? 87 degrees. 87! That number doesn’t surprise me as I’m used to it. It’s just strange how the weather can be so different in 2 different parts of the country at the same time. I’m a southern girl. I’m not used to the cold and snow. 😉 Looking out the window and seeing the mountains in the distance totally makes it worth it though.

A Bit Of A Rant

Those of you who know me know I don’t go back and forth about political stuff. I’m very firm in my beliefs, but I won’t argue politics with anybody. Not one comment that I’ve seen anywhere has had me changing my mind about what I believe. For that reason I don’t allow myself to get pulled into political (or religious) arguments, though I’d say it’s pretty obvious which side I’m on. With that being said, I want to touch on something that really bugged me this week in my real (non-writing) world, on my personal Facebook page.

There’s disagreeing with somebody and there’s being a jerk. We all have a right to our opinions. If somebody doesn’t share yours, ask them why instead of making assumptions and lumping them in with specific groups…. or simply walk away.

There are certain things I feel strongly about and no amount of arguments thrown at me will change that. Instead of calling somebody names publicly (after often saying something different privately), how about asking why they feel so strongly about it? You might be surprised at the response. I was born and raised in the deep South. I’ve been clumped together with the backwoods stereotypes my whole life. Maybe the views of some have absolutely nothing at all to do with politics or religion or where they were raised. Maybe something happened in their lives that made them feel so strongly about certain things.

I’m as sickened over the state of the world right now as most of you are. I’m a big ally when it comes to the rights of everyone. I will stand up and loudly fight for the rights of everybody. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be pulled into a fight and go back and forth arguing with somebody publicly over anything. All it does is stress everybody involved out and the argument ends with neither side having won. It’s not worth it to me – not emotionally or physically. I may not say a lot publicly, but I don’t miss much. I just learned a long time ago to pick my battles.

The person who inspired this post won’t see it and I’m good with that. I’m just amazed over how the true colors of some people come out when certain topics come up.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. I’m hoping to do a bit of exploring and maybe sweet talk my husband into Mexican food tomorrow night. We’ve been here a few weeks and we’ve not been to our favorite place yet. I need to change that. 😉

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway!

Candi

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

On April 5th, 2014 I took a chance. I published my first book, Taking Lance. Taking Lance was written in fun and was never meant to see the light of day. That changed when my best friend in the world encouraged me to publish it. I’d been writing for years but never showed my stories to anybody until that one. I’ll forever credit her for every book I publish. Without her encouragement and constructive criticism my books would still be hiding away somewhere on my laptop.

The Taking Lance series is bi-erotica that turns into a romance later, not just for the main couple (Rick and Lance) but for others as well. Since that was published, I’ve mostly written gay romance and erotica, with one M/F e-book of two short stories published early on. I now save my M/F books for other pen names, though I admit that I haven’t written one in awhile.

The Taking Lance series was completed in July of 2018 when I published Finding Alex. I miss those guys but now I can focus on other stories and series.

I have two official series going on – College Encounters and Willy the Kinky Elf & His Bad-Ass Reindeer. Only one College Encounters book has been published to date but there are several in the works. As for Willy the Kinky Elf, I’m writing #6 now, to be published on November 1st. The plan is to officially end that series in November of 2020 unless something major happens before then. I don’t want to carry a series past its expiration date, as I’ve said in the past. As much as I love Willy and the gang, I really can’t see me taking it beyond 2020 when the plan is to give Santa Claus his own book and tie off some loose ends.

One thing that hasn’t changed in five years is that I still suck on social media and with self-promo, though I’m always available to talk to readers. Just because I’m a little shy doesn’t mean that you need to be. 😉

I read every single review I see of my books and I appreciate them all, even those when the readers don’t like my books. I don’t love every book I read (as I’ve said many times before) so I damn sure don’t expect everybody to like mine. A 1-star review helped me early on when a reader hated the first Willy the Kinky Elf book. Instead of pushing people away from it, that review had some wanting to know what was so painfully bad about it. Every time I publish another story in that world I’m grateful for that review and rating. A bad review won’t bother me unless it describes things that don’t actually happen in the book or if I’m being attacked personally. Otherwise, I’m thrilled knowing that people are reading my books and letting people know their thoughts on them – good or bad.

To celebrate my five years and the most amazing fans ever, I’m giving away a $25 Amazon gift card, the complete Taking Lance series (in one e-book), and the entire Willy the Kinky Elf series (including upcoming book #6 when it’s available – if you look real close on the Willy the Kinky Elf page you might see the tentative title that I’ve not officially announced yet ) via Rafflecopter. I’ve used Rafflecopter before but not as an author so bear with me. 😉 There are lots of ways to enter so check it out and share it if you know others who might be interested in the giveaway. If you have any problems shoot me a message and I’ll see what I can do to fix it.

When I published Taking Lance I honestly thought I’d sell maybe 5 books – total – and that those 5 would be my best friend and her family (who I’m sending the evil eye to because they KNOW they never have to pay for my books). 🙂 Imagine my surprise when the book did quite well, giving me the push I needed to keep going and to publish others.

Thank you to every single person who has read one of my books. Without you, I wouldn’t be doing what I love. I appreciate every single one of you.

Here’s to my first 5 years and hopefully many, many more.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway!

~Candi

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

P.S. To those new to my site, I like to look at nice things (as Willy the elf would say) so expect to see nice visuals in almost every single thing I publish on here, regardless of what the post is about. Some may be NSFW or close to it. I’m an equal opportunity perv so expect a little bit of everything. You can check out my SEXY PICS page to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

And I like red. A lot.

 

On Friday, April 5th I’ll be celebrating the 5th anniversary of publishing my first book, Taking Lance. To celebrate, I’ll be giving away a $25.00 Amazon gift card, Taking Lance (the Complete Series), and the Willy the Kinky Elf series (including upcoming book #6 when available).

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway will start on April 5th and end on April 20th. There will be several ways to enter via Rafflecopter so stay tuned!

Note that the Taking Lance Series is bi-erotica/romance. All characters have sex on-page with others (both male and female for Rick, who is bisexual) before they find their HEA with who they’re meant to be with. If this is something the winner isn’t interested in, they’ll have the choice of another e-book from my catalog.

See y’all Friday,

Candi

I’ve blogged in the past about my website issues.

In 2016 I switched over from a Blogger site to WordPress when the CandiKay.com domain became available. I was familiar with WP because of work I’d done for other sites leading up to my changing over. It was a bit of a challenge at first – I’d never created my own site outside of Blogger before – but I was happy with the finished product.

In the past almost 3 years I have had one issue after another. As in, issues so bad I’ve had to rebuild my website from the ground up several times. 2 days before Christmas nobody could reach my site because of the HTTP Error 500 message. I contacted GoDaddy (who I host through) and it was fixed in a matter of minutes.

Again… 2 days before Christmas. You know, right after I published Dylan the Bad Boy Reindeer & His Virtuous Mate – a Christmas story.

Fast forward to a few days ago.

I couldn’t access my site. Once again I was seeing the Error 500 message. I couldn’t even access my site’s dashboard via GoDaddy. I contacted GoDaddy and was told that I was out of luck unless I wanted to pay them to disable one plugin. I wasn’t even told WHAT plugin, just that they were fairly certain they knew what caused the issue but they couldn’t tell me anything until I paid $50 or $80.

I’d have no problem paying to get my site back. Had they stopped with the $50 or $80 it would’ve been okay. They didn’t. Each person I spoke with on the first day – I spoke with 2 – threw out all these other services that they insisted I would need to pay for to possibly get my site fixed. This was after I was told it was likely just a plugin that simply needed to be disabled – something they could’ve done with a click of a mouse on their end.

In other words, my site was being held hostage… again. Long story short, I was able to get back up and running and I did manage to back up my content – no thanks to GoDaddy.

I finally deduced (again, no thanks to GoDaddy) that the issue was with the email subscriber plugin. That’s what I believe caused the problem back in December. I have since deleted that one and started all over again with a new service. I wish I would have done this forever ago.

I think it’s safe to say that when my hosting comes up for renewal again it will be with somebody else. My best friend sent me a link to a new service that looks fantastic. I’m counting down the days until I can transfer. I’d do it now but then I risk losing what I paid for months in advance with GoDaddy.

I was told it was my fault. When I asked them why – right before each crash – there was a ‘down for scheduled maintenance’ message on the site they couldn’t answer. FYI… the ‘down for scheduled maintenance’ happened daily on my site, sometimes several times in a 24 hour period. If I couldn’t access it I’m assuming others couldn’t either.

I should also note that the same exact issue occurred last year with a site I was using for a pen name. I was never on there (I suck at posting here. Can you imagine me trying to do it on another site?) so I just did away with it completely and turned that WP site into Reindeer Secrets.

That’s the end of my rant. Thankfully, unlike 2 days before Christmas, I wasn’t in the process of promoting a book when it happened this time.

As you can see the site is a little different. It has pretty much the same things it had before minus a couple of pages that I felt weren’t needed anymore. In the coming days and/or weeks all my previous posts will be transferred over and I should be as good as new, or hopefully better.

I’m also trying to shrink the HUGE Candi Kay logo on the top. No matter how many times I change the size it reverts back. Hopefully I can get it back to normal soon enough.

So now I cross my fingers that I caught the problem and have eliminated it. If it happens again, I’ll probably throw my hands up. 😉

Until next time,

Candi Kay

P.S. If you were subscribed to my email alerts you’ve been resubscribed. You may get welcome emails as if you just subscribed. If so, disregard. It won’t allow me to just transfer the names and emails over without doing the ‘welcome’ stuff all over again – only this time hopefully more cleaner and professional looking. 🙂