The God-Wife Reborn: out NOW
Latest News:
July: Even more magically, in July the thing that every writer dreams about happened. A publisher asked for a "Full Manuscript" read on one of my pieces. You fling ten pages, five pages, three chapters, 50 pages or just the concept into publisher slush piles who hold them 3 months, six months, a year plus... then you and get form rejection letters (or it times out with no response, which is their response). It is (in my experience) incredibly rare to get a request from one of these publishers to see the whole piece. I know all the resources and training information says you SHOULD be getting full requests regularly (or there's something wrong with your submission) but as someone who has been submitting very enthusiastically for years now, that is simply not my experience. It is very possible I am not that caliber of writer, or it may be these slush piles are getting hundreds of submissions and a week and my work is just not hitting the spot for them. This month, a publisher said, "send me the full thing and I'll have a look". It very likely this will not lead anywhere (I have had this happen to a different piece before and it ended in an eventual nope). BUT I am going to take it as a win. Regardless of whether they take it or not, at least I know this bloody thing landed in the actual ball-park and not the car-park, of the block over. This is a newer piece fresh to publishers in 2025 and this full request came from the SECOND publisher I sent it to! Fingers crossed!
July: perhaps it was all the focusing on creating new material and doing what I love, or the universe giving me a twinkle of hope, but the season has turned when it comes to pieces being accepted. After a very grim first half of the year (and 12 months prior) quite a few acceptances have come through in the past few months, resulting in six... that's SIX anthologies coming out Aug-Dec 2025 that contain one or more of my pieces!
July: June July has been an insanely creative month for me. In June a brand new novel length piece blasted in out of no where. I finished this piece (12kk as a messy first draft) inside a calendar month. This was a sci-fi adventure story with reverse harem and monster romance elements. In July I launched in to a pre-planned challenge with friends which was, of course, writing a whole novel in a month. This has been more of a struggle as this is an attempt at humour, which needs to land on the page in a certain way and I do need to be in the right headspace, so I am struggling to push through this. I am going to make one final big lunge for the finishing line in the final days!
June: the final days of May and the first days of June have been lovely ones. Tidal Bones was republished in Crow & Cross Keys (I am in awe of the work of some of these small presses and magazines, so beautiful!). I was lucky enough to get a story included in a more local project (more to come!). AND I had a longer piece (12000 words) accepted into a Dragonsoul Press anthology: Beyond the Veil. This piece is lots of fun and a personal favourite of mine (I am really into stories with older characters and villains as the hero - without being heroic - at the moment). This 12k piece was one of the 15 Nanowrimo 2024 stories. I was a bit worried for it, that the steam/sex scene may make it wrong for a lot of places. It FOUND a home!
May: Inkd Publishing accepted one of my humorous, YA /dark academy satire pieces for an upcoming horror anthology. They DID say they'd accept humour as well as horror, heh. Very excited about this. Whilst I have always had stories linked inside the Hell-Colony world, this year (2025) I have been pushing a bit harder to create stories linked in other worlds. Different characters, but the same world/war-setting or in this case, school. This piece Necro-Mantic Troubles is cutely linked to the same humour/satire feel of Bumps in the Night. Hopefully Bumps in the Night will one day be in print, beside its quirky cousin Necro-Mantic Troubles.
April: I enjoyed Warwickcon so much I signed up for the Toowoomba con event: Comic-Geddon! And... they accepted me! More about this event here: https://www.themakersmarkets.com.au/markets/comic-geddon
April: I attended Warwickcon 2025. This was my first visit to this part of the world and my first Warwickcon. Wow! What an amazing place and amazing people. I had such beautiful chats with young creatives and readers. Thank you for having me, Warwickcon!
February 2025: It's GenreCon time! This is a fabulous annual event for all genre writers and readers. The best speakers, vibe and people, gathering to talk all things writing, editing, publishing and marketing. I cannot afford to go every year, but I scrimp and save to go every second year. 2025 is the year! This is happening across the weekend of 28 Feb-1st Mar. As part of the ticket you can put an application in to pitch your work to agents and publishers, and, guess what? I was ACCEPTED to pitch! I will be pitching to an absolute dream publisher and a dream agent this weekend. Arggh! SO flippin nervous!
February 2025: did my first ever book shop event this month. A big thank you to Books @ Stones, a fabulous little bookshop in Stones Corner, Brisbane. This is the closest any of my books have come to being in a bookshop. Such a supportive little bookshop!!!
February 2025: Metastellar Magazine will be publishing not one, but TWO of my short stories in their next "Best of" Magazine, both Snoogle Hunt (a new piece) and also Affordable Resurrection, one of my reprints! They produce one of the most professional, gorgeous anthologies I have ever seen. Very excited to be part of this project!
January 2025: Twas my goal to be brave and get myself into more places to chat to more readers! I am excited to report that I was accepted into Warwickcon (regional pop culture festival) in April as well as into a book signing event at Books@Stones in Stones Corner Feb. I am updating my events page with where I will be, when!
January 2025: Black Hare Publishing accepted a brand new short story. Travel, The Boy and The Anchor will appear in one of their projects soon. Contract SIGHNED, details about the project and the publishing date soon!
January 2025: publishing day for any of my pieces is so exciting. I create a heap of blogs and social media pictures in advance and bite my nails down as I wait for my words to appear in print. Twas a bit of a laugh this week as I spent a few few days checking a publisher's website, fussing over time conversion programs, all ready to launch images and blogs the moment the story appeared... Only to realise it would not! The Tension Between is NOT publishing 9th of Jan 2025, but 9th of Jan 2026. Oh dear! I have quite a long time to wait. Our eyes do have a tendency to read what expect to see!
What's in the pipeline?
Novels:
- Five completed novels in the submission (ie publisher slush pile rejection dance) stage. These include:
- Sci-fi battlefield adventures following a mismatched mercenary team led by a confident but rather unskilled demon bounty hunter in an inter-realm war
- A fast-paced sassy new adult spin on a chosen one trope featuring a unconventionally attractive demon princess
- My first ever attempt at full-length fantasy comedy adventure with a satirical spin on tropes/popular themes
- A sizzling enemies to marriage-of-convenience adventure in a Hellishly dangerous world, (40+ protagonist)
- A short, quirky cosy fantasy adventure featuring a 55 year old swamp witch
- Several additional novel length pieces are sitting with their wheels off in the backyard, giving me sultry looks, itching my brain! This includes a completed BRAND new sci-fi adventure, monster romance novel written inside a month. And another attempt at writing a full-length humorous piece featuring a battered elderly ex-minion attempting to "avoid" the heroes and the "story".
Short stories/Novellas:
- Several longer short story/novellas completed (between the 10-40k range), out chasing publishing opportunities.
- Short stories chasing publication in webzines, anthologies and magazines.
- The plan was to have 20-25 pieces (shorts, novels and reprints) out chasing opportunities at all times. Does this happen? Nooo. It has been a bit of a slumpy year, so its probably close to 10-15 out at all times. I hope to get this number up by making my Nanowrimo 2025 challenge the creation of more pieces!
- I will continue to create new short stories, dabbling outside humour and urban fantasy into lit fic, fantasy, horror, romantasy/smut and fantasy/adventure. I really enjoy exploring characters, genres, worlds and practicing new things through short stories.
- My goal for 2025 was to focus on 'teaser' or taste-tester short stories based in some of my novel-length story worlds. I am already doing this for the Hell-Colony world, but I have a heap of other short stories that relate to one another, or relate to a novel. I have created a new page to map this out: https://nicolewalshauthor.com/linked%2Frelated-stories
- I am attending a heap of 'cons this year. My stories are for adults. I have started to dabble in 'zines (small paper print book) to hand out for free. I am also handing out writing and creative-inspired free gifts to young people and children to inspire them to write, draw or imagine their own stories :-)
What will 2025 bring?
Let's see!