Nicole Winchester 📚

@nicolewinchester

Writer, reader, and reviewer of horror, fantasy, spec fic, drama, humor... a little of everything. 🚫AI WRITING CAN F*** OFF. 🚫 Find some of my stories at winchesterfiction.com Enjoy other things at nicolewinchester.substack.com

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Bluesky

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Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· 27d

Please, brain, stop thinking about yet another book idea I beg you, I just wrote 30k words of a book, it's going so well and it has an outline and everything, don't make me keep stopping and starting please #authorsky

guy looking behind meme at girl captioned "another story idea," man looking behind captioned "me," girl he's with captioned "my 9738 unfinished projects"

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· 27d

Dealing with an AQI of over 300 and 95 degree weather at the same time IS NOT FUN.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· May 11

Oh no I just realized it's just this book but literally:

Cover of Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. An orange cat holds onto a dangling rope.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· May 9

This one's funnier

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· May 8

When ur soft but done with everyone's shit

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Mar 14

Ok so at this rate I'll be able to check out Dungeon Crawler Carl in... *does math*... about 5 years?? 🙃😭

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 25

Face reveal!! Wrong answers only.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 22

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts And now for something completely different: I haven't posted from The Messenger for a LOONG time. Miranda and Gabriel find an abandoned gas station that's guarded by a guy who looks like a maniac.

Miranda gasped and whirled around, searching for the new voice. A scrawny man stood behind Gabriel, staring at them both with eyes that looked like they were about to pop out of his head. Tattoos trailed up and down his arms, as well as his neck, and a teardrop tattoo decorated the corner of his right eye. He gave them a nasty smile, full of missing teeth. A dozen more years and he would look like the gangbanger version of the Crypt Keeper.
“Who told you this all was free?” asked the man.
To his credit, Gabriel came to stand in front of Miranda, as if he had any way to protect her. Miranda hoped her voice wouldn’t betray how scared she was.
“If you wanted to keep it safe, you should have done a better job guarding it.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 21

I'm years late to this trend, but I finally figured out #picrew. Made some avatars for my angelic characters from The Messenger (Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer, respectively) #writingcommunity #writersky #authorsky

Angel Gabriel, in a gray shirt, pale skin, blue eyes, and blonde long hair and a spiky halo on a blue background

Angel Michael in a red robe holding a sword, dark skin, brown eyes, short black hair and a double halo on a red and orange background

Lucifer in a brown coat, pale skin, monstrous mouth and gray eyes with a scar across his cheek, broken halo, broken wing, on a black background

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 20

Read my review of Eve by B.K. O'Connor on Goodreads! (Seriously, you NEED to check out this book once it comes out February 10th! One of the best literary novels I'll read all year.) #booksky www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Eve by B.k. O'Connor, Publish date February 10, 2026. If you grew up in a religion with questions in your heart that earned you dirty looks from your Sunday school teacher (or whoever taught your religious texts), then you'll adore this book.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 18

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts Jim in denial, trying to convince himself that he doesn't have schizophrenia

The voice also didn’t count, because he knew it was part of him even if it didn’t sound like him. Sure, technically it was an aural hallucination, but he didn’t believe it was a real entity. That was the important part. He never talked back to it except to tell it to shut up. Jim had always been careful not to shout at the voice in front of his therapists or counselors, when he’d still gone to them. It was the one symptom he’d never told any of them about, because he could deal with it just fine, as disconcerting as it was. A schizophrenia diagnosis would be the trigger that finalized The Curse, he knew, the thing that would get him thrown in an institution like his father. The thing that would kill him.
The voice remained a secret. The voice was fine. The vision was not.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 17

Is it cringe here to celebrate your follower count? I don't care, I'm very pleased that I'm over 500, even though a few of them are probably inevitably bots too.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 17

#writesky #writingprompts #writingcommunity Jim's son Dylan explains his "little toys" (which become a bit of an important plot point later on...)

“Oh!” Carla exclaimed, this time to his son. “You left some of your little toys here in the backyard last time you came.”
“They’re not ‘little toys,’” Dylan responded defensively. “They’re gachapon.”
Carla raised an eyebrow, but Lucia explained it before Jim had a chance to. “They’re these little Japanese vending machine keychains he collects of all the Rollo characters.”
“I almost have all of them,” Dylan said. “Except for the limited edition blind box hoodie with the golden Dread Pirate Elizo gachapon in it… which I’m getting for my birthday,” he added, squirming with excitement.
Lucia rolled her eyes. “Remember honey, that’s not how the blind boxes work. You could get the golden Elizo, maybe, but it’s only in one out of a hundred boxes.”
“But I bet mine will have it.”
“Don’t get upset if it doesn’t.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 15

#wipsnips #writesky #writingprompts #writingcommunity Jim is always having problems with his managers, it seems

Lucia’s expression clouded dangerously, her mouth pressing into a thin line. “How did you get fired this time? What did you do?”
“It’s because Kevin Wilson was my manager at Malcolm’s and he made my life hell in high school and he’s got this complex—” Jim gritted his teeth. There was no way he could explain that he’d passed out and woken up groping himself.
“It’s never, ever your fault, is it?” she sneered.
“No Lucia, it actually is, even when it’s not, because The Curse—”
She practically lunged at him in her anger, startling Jim. “There is no curse!” she scream-whispered, her voice pitched up a few octaves.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 14

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 13

#bluepit📖 #q #a #f THE MESSENGER Parable of the Sower x Paradise Lost The Archangel Gabriel was not meant to fall. But an unapologetic human witch, and Gabriel's own doubts in God’s plan, will break his faith beyond repair as the apocalypse closes in around them.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 12

"Show me what comic you loved when you were 13, and that's all I need to know about you.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 11

#wipsnips #writingcommunity #writesky Jim brings his rat Retsu to meet his son Dylan for the first time and well... things don't go so great...

“Did mom say it was okay to have a rat in the house?”
“She’s going to,” said Jim. “Don’t worry about that. Here, you should hold her.”
“Um, okay.” Dylan held out his cupped hands and Jim transferred her over. She immediately started climbing Dylan’s arm, up to his shoulder. Dylan giggled and squirmed as Retsu sniffed Dylan’s ear.
“That tickles!”
Jim relaxed a little. Maybe his son just needed a little time with her. She was a total surprise, after all. Just when it felt as if he was really warming up to the rat, Dylan sniffed at something in the air and his face froze in a contorted expression of disgust.
“Ew… ew! Dad, take her back!”
Before he could ask what had happened, Dylan handed Jim the rat and rushed off to the bathroom. Jim caught a whiff of a familiar smell in his wake.
“You shat on him?!” he rasped at Retsu.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 10

#wipsnips #writesky #writingprompts #writingcommunity Jim's past always seems to have a way of coming back to him.

“You’re Jim Erlenmeyer, right? I don’t think I could forget your face from school.” He smirked. “Remember me?”
Jim glanced at the cop’s nametag. Carson. He’d had no idea the kid he’d punched in fifth grade had become a cop. Great.
“Y-yeah,” Jim stammered. “What did I do? Is it my car? I was going to come back to it in just a few minutes.”
“No, it’s not the car,” said Cody. “Although I was the one who found it. I got a little concerned seeing it empty next to a bridge. Good to see you’re okay with your…”
He cocked an eyebrow at Ben for an explanation, then down at Retsu. Before Jim could say anything, Ben reached his hand over Jim’s chest for Cody to shake.
“Ben. I’m a friend of Jim’s. He was just showing me around Pinto.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 9

#Bluepithype #writingcommunity #writesky I feel like this piece called The Other Side by Dean Cornwell sums up The Messenger very well. I'd love to use it as a cover, if I went down the self pub route.

Painting of An angel kissing a woman while war rages in the background

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 7

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity I haven't done one of these in a while, time to start again! Jim has an argument with his sister about going to therapy.

She thought about it for a moment, seemingly confused, and shook her head. “That’s not what happened. Jim… you said you were going to—” she swallowed hard, lip trembling. “I don’t want to talk about this, okay? That’s what a therapist is supposed to be for.”
Then, she left him there with one dim bulb shining a light on the bags at his feet, the sum total of his life stuffed into them. He locked the door, put a chair under the handle for good measure, then checked up on Retsu in the closet. The rat was shivering helplessly in a corner of the cage.
“Sorry about that,” he said. He moved his clothes and gently lifted Retsu out. He didn’t know why he felt so comfortable handling what was basically a feral rat. Maybe it was because his room was the human equivalent of a dumpster. Maybe he was a rat in human form. Maybe that was why people instinctively hated him and knew he was worthless.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Jan 6

We had to send our bunny Phoebe over the rainbow bridge today. 🌈 She was nearly 13, ancient for a bunny. She let us know she was ready; she wouldn't eat, her liver and kidneys were shutting down, stopped cleaning herself. She'd gone blind as a bat years before. She was the best bunny ever.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 23

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts Jim has an emotional moment at an impromptu therapy session with Ben.

“You’re a dad. You know that corny old joke, when your kid whines that he’s hungry, and you say, ‘Hi Hungry, I’m Dad?’ The English language itself makes you identify as your feelings, instead of being able to separate from them and treat them as a temporary experience. Just try it.”
Jim breathed in and out into his hand on his stomach. “I’m having the feeling that I’m angry.” In and out. “I’m having the thought that nobody cares about me.” In and out. His lungs felt like they were turning to stone. “I’m having the thought that I’m stupid.” He couldn’t wait for the next breath. “I’m having the feeling that I hate myself. I’m having the feeling like my chest hurts, and my face hurts, and my whole body hurts. I’m having the feeling that I need to cry, but I can’t, and it’s all just getting stuck inside of me like a clogged up garbage disposal.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 21

Check out my ARC review of Meat Bees by Dane Erbach! This is my first ARC review I've ever done through Netgalley. I highly recommend it if you like getting free books to gossip about before anyone else! www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Meat Bees is an intensely fun horror book that skews more towards a chaotic YA fable about growing up than New Adult novel. It reminds me of Stranger Things... instead of the Demogorgon, there are murder wasps that seemingly kill and eat everything they see. There's possibly something else even scarier beyond that-family drama! Oh, and a mysterious supernatural entity haunting the nearby mountains.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 21

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts Ben finds Jim in a bit of a precarious situation, Jim tries to make small talk instead.

“What are you doing out here?” Jim retorted.
“I found this guy selling fruit out of his truck a few weeks ago. He sold me the best watermelon I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been driving all over Pinto trying to find him again.”
“Was he an old Mexican dude in a beat-up silver Chevy?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“That’s Manny. He’s had that fruit stand since I was a kid. Usually sets up near the laundromat on the north side.” Jim stopped as a wave of pain ripped through his broken lip.
“Maybe you can come with me and help me find him?”
“But I have the rat.”
Ben didn’t make a face. “That’s okay. I’ve got seat covers. Just hold on to her.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 15

Thomas the tank engine with the caption, Thomas has never seen such bullshit before

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 14

Yo everybody @chrisakins.bsky.social wrote a great book and you should read it, if you like fun and aren't a loser. I wrote a review of it and you should read that, too, for the same reasons. #booksky www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

“A humorous romp into the underworld, with reapers and angels and demons, oh my!
“I was drawn in by the very first line of this book-"We killed another guy at the Whataburger this morning[...]" With an opening like that, how could this book not be good?...”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 14

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts A description of Dr. Ben Ngo, Jim's therapist

“It’s like a hurricane out there, huh?” asked the doctor.
“Yeah. Sorry I’m late.”
Dr. Ngo flapped a hand at him dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about it. Can’t blame you, in this weather.” His voice was on the high-pitched side, and he was short, too, the top of his head only coming up to Jim’s chest, though he was used to nearly everyone else being shorter than him. The laugh lines on his face obscured his true age, but he had to be older by quite a bit. His website said his PhD was from the 90’s.
Dr. Ngo thrust out his hand, and Jim took it, surprised by the strength of his grip.
“Nice to meet you, Jim,” he said. “Erlenmeyer, right? Like the flask?”
“The… what?”
“You know, the Erlenmeyer flask? That cone shaped glass flask they use in labs?”
Jim blinked. “I have no idea.”

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 13

#wipsnips #writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts Jim's sister, Carla, threatens to kick Jim out of the house, on one condition...

“You need to go to therapy again,” she said.
“Therapy? You’re the one who just freaked out. You need help, not me.”
“This isn’t minor. Whatever happened with Kevin… you’re about to spiral out of control, if you haven’t already. And you’re drinking again.”
I’ve been drinking a while, he thought to himself, but didn’t dare say that out loud.
“I’m not going. I’ve never gotten anything out of therapy.”
“You go to therapy, or you go live somewhere else.” Carla’s voice was ice cold. She really meant it. “That’s it, Jim. Those are your options. And you better keep a therapist this time. No more bullshit.”
They sat in silence on either side of Jim’s bed, neither one of them budging.

Nicole Winchester 📚@nicolewinchester· Dec 7

#whistpr #crowd #writingprompt #writingcommunity