Why does a writer write?

Hi folks! Today I have the great pleasure of welcoming the very talented author Belinda McBride onto my blog. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with Belinda's work from novels such as Blacque/Bleu and An Uncommon Whore. Today, Belinda is going to be discussing why she writes, she's talking about her past experience with NaNo WriMo and sharing an exciting and incredibly hot excerpt of her latest release An Uncommon Whore 2 - When I Fall. Please join me in wishing her a warm welcome!

I write because I must.

I write because I have something to say.

I write to release the music in my soul.

I write because I’m sure it’s an easy way to make money.

I write because I have a book inside of me somewhere.

There are dozens and dozens of reasons that a writer writes. I’m sure that in my life, I’ve hit every one of those reasons. Mostly, I write because of serendipity. Life threw me a few wrenches and after the bruise on my forehead went down, I actually found some solutions. I have some overwhelming family obligations and yet staying at home to be a caregiver freed me to pursue writing, which wasn’t my chosen career...writing was my dream career. Writing is also my artistic outlet…the thing that makes me feel completed and worthwhile. It’s been my salvation, bringing me money and a sense of worth. It’s been the monkey on my back…laughing at me through poor sales or writer’s block. Being a writer feeds my ego, especially when I sign an autograph or read an excellent review. It’s also my reality check, when I return to my computer and face a blank screen.

Very soon, NaNoWriMo will be kicking into full gear. I’ve participated 3 times and completed the challenge twice. This year I won’t be participating. Yes, I do have a major amount of writing to complete, but I want to work at my own pace. Of course, on the evening of October 31^st, I might just join in. LOL! NaNo is like a big cyber party that spills over into real life…especially if you join some of the writing groups when they meet at a coffee shop or bookstore. NaNo creates a sense of urgency, and also a sense of community. You’ll meet other writers who write in other genres, and while you might have little in common, you are peers.

So if you’re doing NaNo this year…good for you! Just realize that if you don’t meet word count at the end of the month, you have not failed. Look at what you have done and realize that those are words that you wouldn’t have written otherwise.

If you do meet the 50K goal, excellent! Now is the hard part. Don’t leave that manuscript languishing on your hard drive. You’ve given it life, now start polishing and editing. Look at the market and see where your book fits. Expand on it, tighten it, and make those words into a living, breathing document.

It might be the only book you have in you, but I’m willing to bet that if you’ve written that much, there is more inside.

I’d like to hear why you write, and if you’re participating in the Challenge, what your feelings are about it.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Belinda McBride is an award-winning author of erotic speculative fiction. She lives in Northern California with her family and a pack of out-of-control Siberian Huskies. To learn more about her writing, please visit her website at http://www.belindamcbride.com

When I fall, the sequel to An Uncommon Whore is Belinda's latest release was published by Loose Id on 11th October. Check out the exciting excerpt below.

 The blurb:

As king, Helios Dayspring is desperate to secure the future of his people and their new homeworld. His lost memories are slowly returning, bringing with them danger and betrayal.

As the king’s consort, Griffin Hawke wrestles with growing isolation from his lover. When Helios’s secrets begin to come to light, Griffin finds that he barely recognizes him anymore. And Griffin is haunted by his own secrets, nightmares that bring torture and death in his sleep.

Surrounded by enemies and allies, seductive aliens and dangerous operatives, Helios and Griffin find themselves tested to their physical and moral limits. Not knowing who to trust, they can only turn to each other.

Will you be there to catch me when I fall?

Sneak Peek Adult Excerpt: “This land is beautiful, Griffin.” I didn’t speak, giving him time to gather his thoughts. “Have you seen images of Earth…? The Mediterranean? Italy or Greece?” I nodded, and he continued. “This place is similar. The land is harsh, yet after the rain, it’s so green. The trees twist and bend in their battle to flourish, and they give us their wood and their fruit. And the flowers…” He sighed. “I’ve never heard of a planet where plants bloom so vividly during the day and then bow down before the moon-color blossoms of the night. This planet… I could come to love it well.” He came to me and clasped my arms. “When I see how hard this planet struggles in its beauty, I fear for it. I fear…” “You’re afraid it will happen again,” I murmured. That same fear sometimes dominated my life. “Yes. Yes! Gods, Grif, I’m afraid of so many things.” He tightened his hands on my forearms, digging deep into the muscle. What was I to say to that? I studied his face, trying to communicate my own fear and misgivings to him. I realized how little I knew of my lover. He’d been changing during this past year, becoming a person who was a mystery to me. In the past, he’d have shared those fears freely. He’d have turned to me for strength. Now he stood alone so much of the time, shouldering those burdens by himself. He released my arms, and before he could move away, I caught him, pulled him close, and hugged him tightly, pinning his arms to his side. It was the same body I’d held close countless times; the same heart beat within his chest. I nuzzled his face with my rough cheek, my heart aching at what I had to say. “Lio, it can happen again. It might happen again. We can only do our best to strengthen ourselves and protect our planet.” He pulled away and nodded, meeting my gaze. “Thank you for being honest. I needed to hear that.” I didn’t let go of his hands, but pulled him back against my body, letting the wall take our weight. “Publicly, I speak with such confidence. I tell our people if the Landaun invade again, we will be prepared. But without time and a good deal of investment in our infrastructure, we are still so vulnerable. It terrifies me.” “And every day you are forced to hide your fear. Every day, you speak carefully, not wanting to frighten us, yet keeping our people aware of the reality. You are doing the right thing, Lio. I don’t like that you’re taking the risk of this meeting, but the coalition needs to see that you’re a strong leader.” “More than that, Grif. They need to know we will be responsible stewards of the planet.” “That is something that must be proven.” I rested my forehead against his. “It won’t be easy or quick.” “How did you become so wise, Grif? I recall you’ve always been a ‘strike first, think later’ sort of man.” I nipped his ear. “Comes from hanging around you, I suppose.” He drew an unsteady breath, and we gave up the conversation. I’d led him exactly where I wanted him, with his arms around me and my back against the wall. His bare skin was warm and fragrant. When he trailed his fingers under my clothing, his skin was tough. He shoved the shirt up over my head, knocking my eye patch a bit askew. When I tried to adjust it, he stilled my hand and leaned in to gently kiss the still-painful scar that cut through my cheek. He whispered his lips over mine, and I tasted the fruit he’d eaten earlier. “You’re beautiful, Griffin. Don’t hide from me.” I breathed deeply, fighting off the panic that accompanied his touch on my scar. Other than the healers, no one had ever seen the full extent of the damage. He lowered his hands to my belt and nimbly unbuckled it, freeing my semierect cock. A kiss, a touch, and I was hard. The echo of my heart beat through my shaft. I rested my head back against the wall, surrendering to Lio’s expert touch. He knelt in front of me, and I suppressed the need to pull him back to his feet. It still bothered me that he’d drop to his knees before me. Years of ingrained tradition were difficult to overcome, even when the man in front of me shot me a mischievous grin. He dragged his tongue along my shaft, then detoured to nudge my foreskin before teasing and gliding along my cockhead. My hips bucked, and he grabbed my thighs to hold me steady. “No, Griffin. You aren’t going that way tonight.” He went down for one lingering lick, and I shuddered. He moved to my boots, where he unfastened the row of buckles that fit them to my calves. When he was finished, I stepped out of my trousers, naked and wonderfully aroused. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to push him to the floor, to slide along the smooth skin of his body, to press deep inside that perfect ass of his. I took a deep breath and cleared my head. Tonight Helios needed to be in control. I’d known that from the moment we’d entered the room. Tonight I’d be the bottom, figuratively speaking. Helios was nothing if not imaginative during sex—most particularly when he was in charge. He turned me to face the wall, and then he pressed, glided, and massaged with his hands. He dug his fingers into my skin and lightly scraped a trail from my neck to my hips. I always loved the feel of his hair on my skin, but now he kept it bound in its braid, and the weight of it slapped me as he moved. “Stay where you are.” At the whispered command, I leaned and rested my forehead against the smooth white plaster that covered the cool rock walls. He pressed his hips into my buttocks, rocking hard enough that I felt his erection. With his strong teeth, he bore down on the muscle in my shoulder. He held me in place, his powerful hands digging into my hips. I gasped, and my body convulsed in pleasure. He touched, stroked, and licked every scar that graced my skin, showing me that to him, they were marks of beauty. Tears streaked down my face. For a brief second, I thought of Suzan. She’d been a warrior as well; her skin had carried its share of honorable scars. After the death of Helios’s wife, he’d come back to us. We used to lie abed, laughing as we compared our scars to Helios’s virtually unmarked skin. He’d been pulled from the army long before he’d entered combat. Afterward… The Landaun must have had skilled healers to have erased the damage they’d done to him. He loosened the strings on my eye patch, and I flinched, fearing his reaction to the damage there. In this past year, I hadn’t allowed him that intimacy. The ugliness of it shamed me, and I turned to the wall to hide from him. Helios clasped my jaw, turned my head, and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on my ruined eye. He rested his body against mine, stroking my hair and the scars along my face. My breath came in sharp, jagged bursts, and Helios calmed me with soft words and tender caresses, bringing me down from panic. He pulled me from the wall and smiled into my face with nothing but acceptance. My heart broke, and I loved him. He kissed me then, coaxing and soft. Drawing back, he urged me away from the safety of the wall, out into the room. With my hand in his, he walked backward, and I followed him into our bedroom. “Lie down.” I did as he instructed, watching eagerly—almost fearfully—as he slowly disrobed. The hair, though… He kept it braided. He didn’t want it getting in his way. All the fear and need gathered like a vortex, pulling my cock up hard and tight to my belly. He crawled toward me on his hands and knees, came up between my parted legs, and drew our bodies together until he was above me, looking down into my face. He lowered his hips, our cocks met, stroked, and we sparred, thrusting and plunging our hips. Without breaking eye contact, he lowered his mouth to mine and nipped my lips, tasting, then set kisses on my cheeks and eyebrows. My body tightened with intent; I wanted to reach up, wrap that braid around my hand, and pull him down, but he must have seen my impulse. “Lie still.” I had no choice but to obey. Helios was in charge. He traveled the length of my body, kissing, licking, and tasting. He caught and worried my nipple with his teeth, and my back arched; my skin pebbled. Before I could process one sensation, he was gone, moving to another hungry spot on my body, giving me pain, pleasure, and keeping me on edge. My cock ached and throbbed; the head was flushed and dark. I looked down, praying he was ready to do something—anything—to bring an end to my frustration. Before I could register where he was, a warm mouth covered my single remaining ball, laving, loving, and so careful with that tender flesh. Suddenly I was in the past; a momentary flash of red froze my heart. I balanced on the precipice of fear, and then a gentle pull brought me back to the present and Helios and safety. He paused, looked up at me, his eyes unusually serious. “Are you all right, Grif?” I clenched my fists at my side, thrusting my cock up toward his face. He chuckled and returned to my groin, then buried his face between my legs and journeyed down the crack of my ass with his hot mouth. “Fuck!” It was torn from me like I’d been punched in the gut. His tongue was probing, spreading moisture, and I had no illusions about what he intended. Even as a spike of fear hit me, my cock grew harder. I opened my mouth to refuse. A groan escaped as he pressed his finger inside, skillfully loosening my ass. I arched my neck; my eye squinted tightly closed. He worked, never too hard or fast, simply pumping and retreating, pressing in till I felt the first insidious brush of his finger on my gland. I clenched my fists and pounded the sheets from the sheer, overwhelming sensation that rushed through my body. When his mouth came over my dick and swallowed me down, I shouted, and the fabric in my hands tore into shreds. I felt his mouth leave my skin, and before he could ask, I grated out, “I’m fine…fine…” trailing off as he returned to his erotic torture. Teeth were added to the mix, catching on the ridge of my cockhead, right at the fine edge of pain. Another finger joined the first, and I grew impatient with his caution. “If you’re going to fuck me, just do it!” He looked up at me, lips swollen and red, his eyes brilliant with excitement. Before I could protest, he was working his fingers again. A third one stretched me wide, and I gasped when warm, slippery fluid slid into me, making the finger-fuck something that drove me beyond the ability to think…to reason. “Now!” I roared, and I found myself unceremoniously rolled to my belly. Helios jerked my hips into the air and shoved a pillow under my hips. “Like this?” His whisper was harsh and angry. He set the head of his cock against my entrance and pressed in, easing his way past the tight, resistant muscle. “Is this want you wanted from me, Griffin? Or is this what you want to do to me?” I looked back and watched as he knelt behind me, slowly thrusting and then pulling back. I took a deep breath, relaxed, and stopped fighting him. As soon as I went soft, he slid inside and glided deep, an impossible presence that possessed me to the very dregs of my soul. He bit deeply into the skin of my hips with his fingers, and even though I hated the position, I submitted for Helios. And once I submitted, the pleasure began to grow. “Better?” He leaned over my back, and the heavy rope of his braid rested on my skin. “Better.” “Good.” He pulled out and urged me onto my back. Once again he knelt between my splayed legs, then lifted them over his elbows. Automatically I canted my hips, and when he slid home again, it was painless and good. Just damn good. Wow, what a deliciously hot excerpt! If you'd like to find out more about Belinda and her work check out her website and blog pages below. email: belinda@belindamcbride.com My Space: www.myspace.com/belindamcbride My Blog: www.belindam.blogspot.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/Belinda_McBride Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/belinda.mcbride1?ref=profile Thanks So much for taking the time to be here today Belinda. An Uncommon Whore 2 Sounds wonderful and it's on my list of books to read soon.  I'll be joining in with NaNo WriMo  challenge this year for the first time and I'm very excited to start it.  I'm not too sure how I'll do, but I'm hoping it will be a fun experience and of course a small amount of pressure for me to get off my backside(or on it as the case may be) and write more words than I have been can only be a good thing.  I wish you every success with When I fall and all your future releases.