Patrick J. Heck

It’s raining. My shoes can’t find traction in the wet earth. They’re dress shoes, you see, the fancy kinds with zero tread because they’re only mean to be worn on perfectly manicured floors. Wedding shoes. I’d gotten married to my husband three hours prior, and now, ceremony and reception over, rain poured down, and my car was parked on the other side of the venue.

We were meant to be at home, readying to welcome our guests for the afterparty dinner (it was a brunch wedding), but had gotten delayed closing down the venue. As I watched the rain form new rivers in the parking lot, I thought, “this would make a good opening to a book. Someone’s having a good day, they’re getting ready for a huge event in their life, and then bam! Downpour. You can tell a lot about a character in how they handle the unexpected.”

Thinking about that, eventually, led to Everwinter’s opening.

The wet squelch of mud echoed off mauled trees as Malachi trudged through storm-soaked dirt of the forest, careful with each step not to lose his boots to the earth. Against his back, the weight of fresh caught trout forced him onward. Without it, a right turn at the splintered old oak would take him home, but instead he carried on past the tree with only a brief glance of longing toward his cabin.

The Everwinter King, draft one.

That opening has changed. Now it reads more like:

If Malachi had to sacrifice his boots to make it to the markets, he would. His footsteps echoed through the storm-mauled forest, each step muddier than the last. Against his back, the weight of freshly caught trout carried him onward, forcing him to ignore the worn path leading to his cabin. The markets called, and the sun already sat too high in the sky.

“Do not blame me for your delay.”

Malachi yanked his boot, freeing it from the mud before responding to the voice of God. I don’t. It’s my fault.

The Everwinter King, draft six.

Though it’s changed, the heart of it is still there. Mal’s trying to get somewhere important, but a downpour (in his case, one that just finished) is making it hard.

I started writing Everwinter on June 30th, 2025 after dwelling on it for a few months. The original idea struck me around Christmas time. Something like, “what if there’s a famous assassin, but the assassination he’s famous for is actually him faking his own death and going into hiding as the man that killed him?”

It took me six months to start writing because we had a wedding coming up. So the idea cooked, and cooked, and cooked until it became recognizably Everwinter. By end of June, I had a beat sheet, a decent outline (at least of the first half), and enough impatience to just start writing.

At first, the words came easily. I spent the first half of July writing around 35k words. It flowed, I liked the characters, I liked the world—but something felt wrong. I took the second half of July off to look at my outline, get through my TBR, and join a new writing group.

I’m not going to say something magical happened in those two weeks. No lightbulbs went off. No inspiration struck. I just realized I hated the main character.

Maybe that’s harsh—I might revisit who Mal used to be (arrogant, controlling, entitled) and see if I can work it into a different character. But by mid-July 2025, I knew I needed to scrap him. I needed a character that was interesting to me. And I needed an overall tone that wasn’t as bleak or infuriating. Everwinter used to be “gritty epic fantasy,” maybe even dark fantasy, and the genre expectations were slowing me down.

I revisited my outline and beats. I reworked the “behind the scenes” plots and motivations entirely. I picked a new villain. More importantly, I made Mal interesting. For me. I hope others think he’s interesting, too.

I finished my rework in early-August 2025, went to the beach to enjoy some time away from a screen, and came back ready to write. Another 15k words trickled in over the course of the month, and then, on a nice long Labor Day weekend, I finished my first draft with a bang.

I wrote 40k words in three and a half days. It was awesome. I got sushi afterwards.

Of course, I had a long road ahead of me. The first third of the draft still read like the old, darker version, with hints of the old plot very present. Before I touched it, though, I took two weeks off, and poked around at some other projects.

Always take the time off from a project. Always. Coming back with fresh eyes even after a week or two away changes everything.

From late September to October I rewrote the first third and made sure the whole draft seemed cohesive. I also rewrote a few later chapters to match tone more. I did limited line edits. I wanted it to read clean for my upcoming readers, but I wasn’t worried about the quality of the language yet.

By October 20th, I had my draft two, and two lovely alpha readers ready to take a look.

Thus began my longest time off from the book. I asked my readers to finish by December (and they both did!), but I took all of November to work on a different project, then spent most of December refilling my creative wells. Reading, video games, time with friends and family—the important stuff. Plus, I wanted extra time to sit with their feedback.

I made my edit plan during the strange week between Christmas and New Year’s, then on January 2nd, started editing. It was slow, I won’t lie. Coming back to tear into a draft I thought fondly of was a learning experience. But it made a much stronger book! By late January, I had a completed draft three, which I then printed out to do line edits.

We had a killer ice storm in Virginia at the end of January. It trapped us in our house for, no joke, a whole week. Seven inches of snow covered in a half inch of ice. Nuts! But it came with a blessing: I could finish my line edits quickly. Draft four was done before February 1st.

Then it went to betas. Three for my first round, then two more right after when the first three had mostly similar feedback (overwhelmingly positive, just confusion sprinkled throughout, mostly in the same spots for all three). My two additional betas had different feedback, which gave me enough places to make edits for my post-beta draft five, which I finished in early March 2026.

This is the draft that went to RevPit. The draft I thought query-ready, at least to the best of my ability.

RevPit gave me time to sit on my draft. It also gave me a core piece of advice: write the story you love, but highlight what makes it marketable.

For me, that meant changing the “romantic subplot.” I’d been reluctant to, I have to be honest. It wasn’t supposed to be a proper romantic subplot, more just another complication for the main character to navigate (an ex-fiancé). But a few beta readers pointed out that it felt underdeveloped, which meant I’d developed it too much to not be a proper subplot, and now it was sitting in an unsatisfying space between “romance” and “two people who used to love each other.”

I sat on it for a few days. Thought about what edits might look like. Called back to the days when all I wrote was genre Romance. Then, late April 2026, I dived into my last big round of edits.

By May 8th, I was done. I sent it off to three new betas and now I’m waiting for feedback. Betas, if you’re reading this, the clock is ticking.

(Kidding, of course. Please take your time.)

Spoiler, though: all that patience I had last spring is gone. I tossed a few queries out, just to see if I got any bites. Nothing yet, but I’ll report back if that changes!

In short, my timeline for Everwinter looks like:

• December 2024, initial idea.
• May-June 2025, planning stage.
• June 30th, 2025, first words written.
• September 1st, 2025, first draft finished.
• October 20th, 2025, second draft finished.
• Sometime in January 2026, third draft finished (post alpha feedback).
• End of January 2026, fourth draft finished (line edits).
• Early March 2026, fifth draft finished (post beta feedback).
• May 8th, 2026, sixth draft finished (post subplot-redo).
• May 14th, 2026, first queries sent.

It’s been a fun ride! I’ll kick off querying seriously when I get my new beta feedback, and then this bad boy will sit in the trenches for six-ish months till I call it. Then it’ll be time to query something else (provided there aren’t a million requests still out on Everwinter, haha).

What’s next? Let’s just say: Howl’s Moving Castle meets Downton Abbey in an MM romantasy (fantasy romance?) about a manor’s caretaker and the old lord that disappeared.