I just sent “Master Nikolai” off to the proof reader. I finally got that done feeling. The done feeling is when I have edited and re-edited then read the whole book through; when I reach the words ‘the end’ I have that feeling of completion. That is the done feeling. I never send a book to my proof reader until I get that done feeling. Of course, when my proof reader sends the book back she might find a hole in the plot that I didn’t see. That is why it’s always important to have a fresh pair eyes look over your work. When I get the book back from the proof reader and I have fixed any errors in it I send it off to my distributor. That is when I have a glass of wine (until I am done with my meds it has to be nonalcoholic wine) with my husband to celebrate the completion of my book.

The Erotic Shiver "His Eyes Wide Open" is available in my yahoo store www.justusrouxebooks.com This story will enhance my soon to be released book "Master Nikolai" I did intend to keep this erotic shiver and the erotic shiver "Curiosity Seduced the Woman" separate from the book "Master Nikolai" but I felt this story would be told better if all three pieces of these story were put together in one book. So these two erotic shivers will be included in the book "Master Nikolai” They will also be included in "Erotic Shivers Volume I" which will be released at the end of December. "Master Nikolai" is due to be released at the end of October.

I am finally getting over my stupid cold, thank goodness. I have so much to do and was having trouble concentrating with this cold.

I will probably spend the week writing and catching up on reading submissions for my website. I am looking forward to my author day tomorrow on Ebook love yahoo group.
I plan to giveaway three or four ebooks and a T-shirt, coffe mug and pillow with "A Song for my Warrior" cover on them. Plus I will be giving readers a sneek peak of "Master Nikolai" I will spend a good part of the day today planning for my author's day.

I am having an Author's day on Ebook Love this Tuesday Sept 19th from 10 a.m.- 3 p.m. Here is a link if you would like to stop by and say hello. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eBookLove/

Plus I am one of the feature authors on The Romance Studio's blue section. Here is a link if you would like to check it out. www.theromancestudio.com

I have had a really good storyline for a new book kicking around in my head for awhile now. I am dying to write it too. The only problem is that the story involves vampires. When this story came to me, hell that was four years ago, the book market wasn’t overflowing with vampire stories. Now, however it seems every other book is about a vampire. So, I don’t really know what to do. Is there enough room for yet one more vampire story? I don’t want my book to get lost in the sea of other books. My book will have a different angle to the whole vampire thing, will this make it stand out?

I know as a reader I love reading books about vampires if the story is done right. Christine Feehan is one of my favorite authors and I love how she portrays vampires in her book. On the other hand, I have read way too many books where the vampire characters are basically the same as each other.

Of course if my muses want me to write this story I will have to : )

Oh my goodness my body is so sore. I started my intense workout program this week. I am happy as hell I got through this week : ) My goal is to get my body into the best shape its ever has been by my 40th birthday (July 19th)

Being a writer it seems like I am always sitting. And here lately I haven’t been exercising enough. I love going on very active trips. But, if I don’t discipline myself and keep up with my exercise program I am going to lose my stamina. I sure the hell don’t what that.
I love having curves, so I don’t plan on exercising so hard that I lose them.

This week has flown by it seems. I can’t believe it’s already Saturday. I have been writing so much this week my fingers are getting sore. But when a story is flowing I seem to lose track of time.

Happy Labor Day to U.S. Readers

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. It's the last hurrah of the summer.

This summer has been a little strange. First off it seemed to go by really fast. And secondly it has been a summer of deep thought for me. You know thinking about things like what direction I want to go with my life, how far I would like my career to go. Of course I would be ecstatic if sometime in the future I became a best selling author, but realistically few authors achieve such a career high as that. Not to say I won't keep working towards that goal. Right now as long as I have readers who enjoy my books I am very happy.

I don’t know what brought on this evaluation of my life, but it was much needed. I discovered there needs to be changes in my life. Now, I have a much clearer vision on what my future goals will be and how to make the changes that will improve my life considerably.


I am going to do something fun this Labor Day weekend. I want to enjoy this last part of summer.

Last night I had a little trouble sleeping, a bit too much coffee during the day. So, with this extra time I started to map out my goals for next year. I came up with quite an ambitious plan. The only problem is what books I was going to come out with. I have so many really good storylines floating around in my head. I do know for sure the next book in the Barbarians of Malka series will be one of the first books released next year. And of course the yearly anthology which will be titled Erotic Tales Volume II. Erotic Shiver Volume II will also be released next year as well, as for what other books I am just not sure yet. I guess I will leave it up to my muses which ones will be released.

I will be attending Dragon Con next year. This was a hard decision. I wanted to at least get one book/trade show in next year. It was between The Romantic Times Convention and Dragon Con, the deciding factor was my oldest son is graduating from high school next year and The Romantic Times book show is held too close to the time he graduates. I wish I could attend both, but there is no way I can.

I have so much I would like to get done next year. If I only get half of what I want to get done it will be a great year.

I have been working on my book “Master Nikolai” and have come up to the hardest part-the middle. Writing the beginning and the end are very easy for me, it’s the middle if I’m not careful the story can wander away from the main plot. When I am done with a book then go through and edit it is always the middle of the book I have to rework a bit. The middle is where I have to stop and think how this storyline is going to get to the ending that I have envisioned. There is nothing wrong with a storyline taking little detours. When I am writing a book and the characters start interacting with one another the book might take a different direction than I planned in the first place. Where I am at now in “Master Nikolai” the storyline is pretty much set. I just have to keep myself from taking too many detours. This will slow down the story and I sure don’t want that.

I have been thinking of ways to spruce up my Yahoo Group, but am coming up with no really different ideas. There are so many good yahoo groups that deal with erotic romance or other genres of writing there really is no need to do anything they are

I have heard two different opinions about writer's yahoo groups, one- that readers only want a monthly newsletter and that is all. The other- that readers want some interaction and like for different events to be going on in a writer's group. I tried to get a nice balance between the two.

I will ponder this for awhile. I really want a yahoo group that everyone will enjoy.

It was brought to my attention that the blog for Master Nikolai has been taken down. If you have purchased my book "Love Thy Master" there was a link to Nikolai's blog. This blog covered Jade's training, which is already included in "Love Thy Master" so none of the story will be missing due to Nikolai's blog been removed.

I am pretty sure it was removed due to inactivity for so long. When I do a character blog in the future I will remember to post on it every now and then to keep the blog running. I am sorry that Nikolai's blog is gone. Unfortunately I didn't save what was written on it. But as I stated earlier all the stories about Jade's training is already in "Love Thy Master"

It's going to be one of those weeks I can tell already, lol. I swear being writer is like riding on a roller coaster, up and down constantly.

I am a bit disappointed. I read that article in the Free Press and saw that she didn’t use any of what I said. All I can say is oh well, it was a good experience and I am happy that other authors did mention me to the reporter for her article. Sometimes promo stuff gets very frustrating to say the least.
I did receive a pretty good review for “A Song for My Warrior” from Just Erotic romance on Sunday, but I didn’t read it until this morning. The reviewer had a couple of negative things to say. Overall it was a nice review. Not every review is going to be a completely glowing review. Thankfully most of the reviews I received for this book have been outstanding and the emails I have gotten from readers telling me how they have enjoyed this book is wonderful :) So I am very happy with how the book has been received so far.

I finally think I got this blog working the way it should. A few of your comments weren't being posted, though most of them still haven't showed up I did reply to all of them by email. If you have emailed me and haven't received a response please email me again, my junk mail filter for my emails has been off this month. I love hearing from readers and respond to every email sent.

It looks like I got the links working too, yay! I am new to this blogging thing, but I think I got the hang of it now, lol

I have been working on two stories at once this week. I have almost finished the Erotic Shiver "His Eyes Wide Open" this story is about Jacob, Rose's young assistant. He went to Master Drake's island to do some research for his and Rose's book about Masters. This story is bigger than I first originally thought it would be. I also have been working on “Master Nikolai” this is the book Rose is in. I have been really wrapped up in this whole story. I have type so much this week my poor fingers are sore. But I love it when my stories flow this good. Master Nikolai is a bit more complex, he is more a ritual Master (He prefers to have things done a certain way, his submissives love doing these things for him) and he doesn’t accept guests the way Drake and Dante does. His punishments are more of denial than pain, he doesn’t want to or like to bring pain to his women. Nikolai is a very private person.

I have been debating whether or not to change my website. I decided against it. I like my website the way it is. I know it's not as flashy as other authors’ website, but it is easy to load especially for the visitors who only have a dial up connection. I live out in the middle of nowhere or at least darn close to it, lol and just recently they started offering DSL. So I know the frustration of waiting for a website to load up when you have dial up. The Erotictales Publications yahoo store is rather simple too, again for easy load up. I like to keep things simple. Maybe in the future I might revamp my website I never close my mind to anything.

I just had my first phone interview :) It was actually rather easy. I had visions of me saying something stupid, but I did okay. Me and a couple other authors and editors were asked to give our opinions on the erotic romance and erotica genre. Questions like why I got into this genre etc. I am not quite sure how much of what I said will be in this article for this Sunday's Detroit Free Press. But it was a good experience. Doing something for the first time is always the hardest. Next year I plan on doing some promo events like , radio interviews, a couple of book conferences, and a couple of book signings. I am a rather shy person so these promo things will be hard at first. But I think the more I do these things the easier and funnier they will be.

What’s in a name? :)

I just received a very nice email from a reader, which I just love to get these kinds of emails. It really brightens up my day : ) The only thing was it was address Mr. Roux. This never bothers me, I know my pen name is masculine sounding. Well for that matter my real name is kind of too, lol. I was asked once why I picked the name Justus Roux? To be honest I just love the way it sounded and the way it looked in print. I was going to use the last name Roux, it took me forever to come up with the first name. It must have taken me a good month to come up with a pen name that I really liked. My young adult author pen name was easy. I let my children pick it out. They combined the initials of my name and my son picked the last name, he saw it on the web and thought it sounded cool, so they came up with T.S. Torok.

What’s up with Amazon.com

What’s up with Amazon.com


I recently just found out that Amazon isn’t carrying PDF or Microsoft e-books anymore or at least it appears that way. Instead they are directing customers to Mobipocket, which of course they own. Thankfully all my books are on Mobipocket and of course are in print. But what about the small publishers who only produce ebooks, this has to have a huge impact on them. I don’t like the fact that readers will lose the option to have ebooks in PDF or Microsoft reader, when they buy from Amazon. I sold quite a lot of ebooks through Amazon and have to wonder how this will affect my business’ bottom line. Since ebooks of all my books are found in a number of other avenues I am hoping this won’t affect my business too much. As a reader I often bought ebooks through Amazon, I personally prefer Microsoft reader.

Another thing that concerns me a little is the rising price of gas. I feel the impact of this in my household. With so many people barely making ends meet they will have less and less money to spend on fun stuff like books. I have tried to keep my ebooks at a very reasonable price. Most outlets carrying them for between $4-$5, I plan to keep the price of my ebooks at this price. However I don’t have control over if retailers increase the price, most however follow the suggested retail price.

My young adult imprint On Dragon Wings will still hopefully (Fingers crossed) launch by March 2007. I have sent the first book “Soul Spectrum” to be tested by the targeted audience (children ages 12-17) and so far the book is being well received, even in it’s pre-proofed form. I certainly hope by time this imprint launches that the economy will get back on track.

When Muses Misbehave

Last week it was terribly hard to focus on writing. First it was hotter than hell most of the week and even though I do have air-conditioning it still got toasty in my house. I told my husband next summer we are getting central air.

My muses have been overactive the last few weeks too. I’ve been having a creative storm as I like to put it. I have so many new storylines bouncing around in my head, it is almost impossible to focus on the story I am writing now. The only thing I can really do is write down all these new story ideas and hope it settles my muses down a bit.

Today is the first day I have gotten some serious writing done. I have been working on “Precious Cargo” and should have it done tomorrow. I am really pleased how this story has turned out. I would like to continue work on “Master Nikolai” by the end of the week. However Jacob’s story is demanding to be written. Jacob is Rose’s assistant, both are working on a book about Masters. The first part of their story is in the erotic shiver “Curiosity Seduced the Woman” Rose is the leading female character in “Master Nikolai” While Rose is at Nikolai’s home in Romania, Jacob managed to get on Master Drake’s island. I wanted to write an erotic shiver about Jacob’s experience on Master Drake’s island. The original plan was to write this story after I finished “Master Nikolai”, but apparently my muses don’t like this plan. Jacob’s story and Rose’s story cover the same timeline. I thought this would be very interesting. Both of them will find out that there is so much more to the Master/Slave lifestyle than they thought. Both also find out something about themselves along the way. I haven’t come up with a title for Jacob’s story yet, but it will come to me.

Leading Men

I had someone ask me once why I often have big muscular men as my leading male characters and if they are not extremely beefy that they were lean and feminine looking. It’s just my personal preference. When the characters are forming in my head they tend to take on traits that I find very attractive. Especially for the erotic romance stories.

It seems silly that a woman who stands only five foot two would find such large powerful men very attractive. After all a man who stood six foot two, would tower over me. That’s one of the things I find so sexy about big, strong, beautiful men. I love how strong men are. I mean here is someone who could quite literally break a woman in two if he wanted to, but yet he is so gentle.

On the other end of the spectrum men who are so beautiful almost feminine looking have there own appeal. These men always seem to have long silky hair in my stories. Another trait I find terribly sexy. When I pair the big men with these feminine men, damn it can get pretty darn hot.

I have always liked a man who was more on the dominant side, so most of my male leading characters are certainly alpha males.

All this talk about men is getting my muses stirring, so I better get to writing.