Before you say it – yes! Yes, I should be writing on the second book in my new series. I’m taking today off to do some behind the scenes stuff and let my mind wander a bit. A wandering mind is a writer’s best friend.
I love the world I’ve created. My sexy shifter men and my magic and the places all over the Hemlock Universe I love. Hell, there are worlds I haven’t told anyone about. Like those Starscales the Sleeping Omega Prince is related to? They’re out there in what we’d call outer space just living their sexy dragon lives. I want to take my readers there one day.
This isn’t a blog about “Hey, ya’ll I’m done with this omegaverse I’ve been writing for almost three years now!” Hell no! This universe is my home when it comes to the keyboard. At this point I’d rather cut off my fingers than give up writing in my universe.
But there are other parts of the Hemlock Universe I want to explore. Mainly, the women. Okay, not Zoey. I think she’s the most talked about woman in my universe and I get it – she’s annoying. She’s that one family member everyone has and just wants to grab and shake. She was always going to be that character, though. She’s the combo of a few men I know actually. I just wrapped them up in little heroic but annoying Zoey Hemlock.
Before I wrote MPREG I wrote in a variety of genres. I tried my hand at everything while I practiced for what I didn’t know at the time would be the thing that stuck in the long term. Guys, ladies, my fellow enbies, I miss writing female leads. I’ve missed it for a while, but recently it’s been a strong urge. There are so many interesting women in the extended universe (in my brain lol) that I’d love to bring to the page. Maybe that’s a little evident to readers who read all of my books – Gloria and Lynia (The Crow King’s Heir) and then Hela and Olivia. (The Omega Midwife)
Heck, I miss it so much I gave Hela a chapter of her own in The Omega Midwife. I’d have loved to write her story with Olivia, but alas the Saga is (was? It’s over now.) Mpreg. Gay romance. All about my sexy men who I adore.
I’ve had folks ask me “Then why not write some straight people books?” Ummm… That’s complicated. When I ghostwrote at the beginning of my career I got burnt out on vanilla straight relationship writing. Seriously, it killed me on it. I was writing so much of it to pay the damn bills. And…. the power dynamic most people like to read of the Alpha guy and the little pretty omega woman is triggering to me. As someone who survived sexual abuse that will never be my jam. The romping happening in most of those books is consensual. I get that, but it’s the language and all of that stuff the genre is expected to have.
I’ve thought about writing it the other way – until I figured out that was dipping my toes into what people will dub ‘role reversal’ and ‘femdom.’ I read both of those genres by the way. I just have a feeling they wouldn’t pay the bills and yeah, I’ve made a career of writing. What I write has to pay the bills. It’s my job, after all.
And neither of those is what my creativity is craving. I want to write about women like Gloria and Lynia and Olivia and Hela. I want to write lesbian romance again, but I wanna write it in this universe. I want to open up more of the Hemlock Universe and expose it for all the wonderful people and horrible villains who dwell within it. Except I don’t think the readership for A/O F/F Pregnancy crosses over with Mpreg readers and the last thing I want to do is drive readers away from my universe.
So, maybe I’ll never write these women and they’ll just be a part of the universe readers never know beyond the glimpses in my MPREG books. That makes me a little sad, but I guess unless you’re Rowling (pissed at her at the moment) or King, no one gets to write what they want all the time and that’s okay. I can live with that for now.
I’ve thought about just publishing those books and not mentioning them on my social media. That way readers who want them can find them – but that’s no way to promote a book. I’ve thought about writing them under a different penname, but I don’t want two sets of social medias. I’m bad at keeping up with one.
I’m at impasse with myself – with what I know pays the bills and what I want to write again soon.
Maggie Hemlock Books 