One Step Closer: Koen is Home from the Editor

The line edits are in.

After months of waiting, wondering, and second-guessing, Koen: Quills from the Raven’s Nest has come back to me from my savior with a red pen, the editor at Grendel Press, who heroically battled the creeping typo and the terrorizing grammatical error.

This isn’t my first round of feedback, which came during the editorial stage before I signed the contract. But this is the first time I’ve experienced line edits—that intimate, detailed comb-through where every sentence is laid bare, every rhythm tested, every intention measured against execution.

And I’m still breathing. In fact, I’m feeling pretty good.

The worst of it? The first scene needs work. Here’s the funny part: the opening chapter that the editor flagged as the weakest in the book wasn’t in the original submission. It was a late addition—a last-minute response to early editorial feedback from Grendel’s editor-in-chief, suggesting the story needed a stronger start. I wrote it quickly, hoping to address the concern and strengthen my chances of securing a deal. It didn’t go through my usual process of drafting, sitting with it, and listening for the beat of truth beneath the words.

So, when the line editor came back with, “This feels forced,” I couldn’t argue. She was right. Her thoughtful, insightful feedback pointed to the heart of the issue: that the trial for an assassination attempt that opens the story doesn’t ripple forward meaningfully. It’s mentioned later, yes, but it isn’t the book’s spine.

Instead, she suggested something that honestly gave me chills: begin with a private conversation between Koen and Rachel. Let the story’s central tension—their inability to produce an heir—rise from a place of intimacy. Let the book start with the two of them speaking in vulnerability. This is a perfect, poetic start that strengthens the whole message of the book.

And here’s the beautiful thing: parts of that first chapter that I loved can stay. But now, I get the chance to rewrite the opening with more intention, depth, and alignment to the story’s core after letting it sit for half a year. It’s not a loss—it’s a refinement.

To be honest, I’ve dreaded this moment. Not because I feared edits—I hoped there would be edits. I wanted to know the manuscript had been examined with a microscope and that someone had truly stepped inside my sentences. And, most importantly, I wanted to learn. But I also feared the other extreme: a wall of red ink like a murder scene, a painful reckoning, the quiet confirmation that I am, in fact, a terrible writer.

That didn’t happen.

I got something better: just enough red to know the editor read deeply, carefully, with a scalpel. But not so much that I felt gutted. The comments so far are precise, not overwhelming. The suggestions feel aligned with the soul of the book. And the words that still echo in my head?

“You are a terrific writer.”

That sentence from someone I have never met will be a lifeline to carry with me for the rest of my career, especially when the doubt creeps in—and it always does.

So now, the work continues. I’ll be refining and revising with line edits in hand, one word at a time. I am currently on page fifty of a five-hundred-page book. I haven’t looked ahead, so there may be other major issues to address, but I’ll treat it like Christmas.

Five hundred pages might seem far, but I assure you, Koen is so close to being ready for the world. We’ll be there in a few weeks. And for the first time, it feels real—not just a story in my head, but a book with a spine, a cover, a future. One more thing in my writing career bucket list will get a check—I’ll be a traditionally published author.

To everyone who’s been following along: thank you. Your encouragement means more than you know.

To Koen and Rachel: I’m coming back to you. Let’s get this right and then send you out into the world.

Cheers!