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With so many memorable moments, it can be hard to pick just one! Here is a small collection of some of the best quotes from “The Myth of Arden”. Have a favorite that didn’t make the list? Be sure to add it to the comments below!
Haven’t read the book yet? The Kindle eBook version is free for all Amazon Prime members! Check it out: The Myth of Arden
“I will not become what I hate. This all ends here.”
Anny, Chapter 5; The Myth of Arden by Susan Marie Strom
Speaker Unknown, Chapter 4; The Myth of Arden
“Why not be brave in your final hour? Why not be true to your fate? Destiny is to be embraced, not run from.”
Anny, Chapter 4; The Myth of Arden
“Hopeless, take your fated path. Love no more. Love your pain more and forget yourself.”
“Do you think you could ever love me or even like me? Even just tolerate me?”
Jax, Chapter 7
“Nothing can be all good or all bad.”
Jax, Chapter 7; The Myth of Arden
“Run! Run away as far as you can. Never return.”
Cailar, Chapter 7; The Myth of Arden
“Could there be a love so pure that it would overlook all those flaws?… One where it didn’t matter at all what the other did; so unconditional it bordered on unnatural.”
Anny, Chapter 9; The Myth of Arden
I was raised in Upstate New York in the small town of Napanoch. When some people hear you are from New York, they immediately have visions of skyscrapers or the Statue of Liberty. However, Napanoch is a rural town a few hours north of the city with spectacular Shawangunk Ridge views. This landscape inspired most of the terrain in my writing, where the forests are thick with winding trails.
While attending Ellenville Central Schools, I would often lie that I was “from Ellenville” because Napanoch was virtually unknown. As it turns out, Ellenville is equally obscure (a point lost on me in my youth). Still, it was here that I first became interested in writing as I had several remarkable and enthusiastic teachers.
The first great storyteller in my life, however, was my father. He could command a room with humorous and disgusting tales of his life. I lament that so many good memories were lost with his death as no one could retell the tales quite the same way he could. He showed me that the best stories are personal.
I considered writing my passion but took the advice that a degree in something else would afford me the luxury to write in my free time. The concept of not writing to write more might sound counter-intuitive because it is! It turns out graduate school affords you little free time.
However, after shelving my writing aspirations for a couple of decades, I suffered a terrible loss. It was a pain unmatched by any other loss I had endured up to that point, and in all the sorrow, I made a promise that I would finish the work I had started years earlier. I channeled my grief into creating something new, hoping that in some small way, something good might come from the unfathomable despair. I hope to continue in this promise with many more stories to come!
If you have already created your eBook, then you will have noticed that the eBook and paperback versions of the book are going to be automatically linked. That means that the information you added when creating the eBook can be reused for the paperback so you can skip the next three paragraphs.
If you skipped creating the eBook, then the first thing you are going to want to do is make sure you have an account with Kindle Direct Publishing. They have a nice paperback creation tutorial which you will want to reference if you have any difficulties. After you create your account, you will be able to start to fill in the basic information about your book, including the title, author, and series information.
You will then want to include a brief description of your book. This will appear on the webpage for your book, so make sure to write something catchy that would give the reader an idea of what your book is about.
You will next have to pick a few keywords, which will help people when searching for your book. There are suggestions for these here, but the basic idea is to pick words not already in your description, that someone who was searching for them might be interested in your work. You can always change these later if you feel that they are not descriptive enough.
Formatting the paperback is a little harder as you are going to have to format your book with the appropriate margines. First you are going to have to decide what size book you want and then set the margins accordingly.
I chose the standard “6×9 inch” format, but the full list of formats available is found here. For the format I chose the margins have to be set as follows: first in Word go to “Layout” and click on “Page Set up”. Set the page setup to “mirror margins”. Next, set the Top, Bottom, Inside, and Outside margins to 0.25. Set the Gutter to 0.75 for now. When you upload the book KDP will suggest the correct gutter margin based on the number of pages to your book. You will then be able to go back and correct the gutter setting if it is not right.
Next go to the “Paper” tab in the same window and set the paper to the dimensions of your book (6 inches wide by 9 inches in this example). This will dramatically change the number of pages in your manuscript! Before going further scroll through the entire book and look for any formatting mistakes caused by the change in the page size. Such errors would include extra blank pages, or the starts of chapters being in the middle of pages.
If everything looks good, then you are only missing the Table of Contents, but first you are going to want to save a copy of your book in PDF format and upload it to KDP. Next, run KDP’s Online Previewer. It will flag any margin errors and formatting errors. Correct them before adding in the numbers to your Table of Contents.
To add numbers to your Table of Contents use the TAB option:
Now save your file as a PDF and upload it to KDP. Run the Online Previewer again. If no errors are found, then you are ready to move on to the next step which is pricing your book.
I know this step is going to be particularly hard depending on if you want to have your book available for distribution or not. If you do want to have your book available to distributors, then you are going to have to increase the price to cover the cost of printing from your reduced royalties. That is because once in distribution, the total percent royalties you receive decreases.
Luckily, the KDP website will let you know the cost of publishing your book, so you will be able to decide for yourself what price point works for you. If you change your mind later, it is very easy to go back and adjust the price. For me, I tried to go as low as I could hoping that the sales in eBooks would make up for the poorer returns on the paperbacks.
Once you have submitted everything, your book will be available in about 24-48 hours! If you decide to change anything, the same delay in the changes applies, but so far I’ve been impressed with how quickly updates are published.
Congratulations! It’s time to watch your favorite episode of Columbo (likely Try and Catch Me) and relax for a minute before going on to Step 9: Marketing Your Book (coming soon).
I published through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This is a great service offered by Amazon that allows you to self-publish your work.
Why would you want to self-publish? Well, if you want complete control over your work then this is a good option. It is also good if, like me, you felt completely overwhelmed by the idea of trying to get someone to publish for you.
If you have not done so already, create an account by clicking here. They have a tutorial for formatting your eBook that goes into detail, but here we will just give a brief overview.
After you create your account you will be able to start to fill in the basic information about your book, including the title, author, and series information.
You will then want to include a brief description of your book. This will appear on the webpage for your book, so make sure to write something catchy that would give the reader an idea of what your book is about.
You will next have to pick a few keywords which will help people when searching for your book. There are suggestions for these here, but the basic idea is to pick words not already in your description, that someone who was searching for them might be interested in your work. You can always change these later if you feel that they are not descriptive enough.
For the cover of your eBook, they have a built-in cover creator that is fun to play around with. If you are good with a camera you could also snap a photo for your cover, but you will have to make sure that it is a JPEG or TIFF format and less than 50MB.
Now to uploading your eBook! KDP has a wonderful program called “Kindle Create”. It is an app you download to your computer and it will take your file and convert it to the correct “.kcb” format.
Simply take the file you created in the Step 6 and load it into the app. Once it is loaded you will find that the app is able to automatically create a Table of Contents complete with hyperlinks to each chapter. Talk about saving time! So take advantage of the Table of Contents creator. Once you are happy with the look of your eBook use the app to create the “.kcb” formatted file and then upload it to your KDP account.
After the files have been checked for accuracy, comes the difficult task of deciding what to price your eBook. Luckily there is a handy graph available to you that will let you know what ballpark you should be in.
For me, I also registered for KDP Select. In exchange for keeping my eBook only on the kindle format I was able to get a boost in royalties. It is definitely a program to consider if you are just starting out. The enrollment can be canceled if you later decide to publish in other formats.
You have come this far, you might as well make the paperback version too. Check out Step 8: Publishing Your Paperback Through Kindle Direct Publishing!
If you did the last steps, you have now read through your finished work about three times and are likely happy with it. Now for the fun, fun task of putting it all together for publication through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Create an account by clicking here. They have a tutorial for formatting your eBook that might want to take a look at as well as a tutorial for formatting your paperback book.
Now would be the time to take all your individual chapter files and combine them into one document. A final word count of 75,000-100,000 is generally recommended for publishing fiction books.
The proper format would be:
Page 1: Title of Book with your name underneath
Page 2: Copyright information
Copyright © 2019 AUTHOR’S_NAME_HERE.
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN#
Page 3: Dedication
Page 4: Blank page
Page 5: Table of Contents
1 NAME OF CHAPTER
2 NAME OF CHAPTER
3 NAME OF CHAPTER
Page 6: Blank page
Page 7: Acknowledgements
Page 8: Blank page
Page 9 and beyond
Next, you are going to make sure your text is compact, but readable. Once you publish, you will be responsible to pay for the cost of printing from your royalties, so the fewer pages the book requires, the more of the royalty you will keep.
Make sure to remove any double spacing. There should not be extra lines between sentences or paragraphs. The start of each new paragraph should be indicated by a TAB. You are going to want to set the TAB to 0.25 inches. To do this go to the ‘Paragraph” section under “Home” and click on the little arrow in the lower right corner. Then under the TAB option set the “Stop Tab Position” to “0.25”.
The font should be Times New Roman size 12 or something comparable. Avoid fancy fonts that might be hard to read except for in the title page.
Make two copies of the resulting document. One is going to be further edited for your eBook and the other for the paperback version.
For publishing the eBook, go on to Step 7: Self Publishing your eBook through Kindle Direct Publishing, or for the paperback skip to Step 8: Publishing Your Paperback Through Kindle Direct Publishing!
Editing is an arduous task! I lost a lot of sleep wondering if I had used the right word or mistakenly used a word that was similar to the one I was thinking, but not quite right. I’d had friends offer their help, but in the end I was perhaps too much of a control freak to take their advice.
First, you are going to want to read the whole thing cover to cover to check for any obvious mistakes. This might include things like punctuation, but likely you have been correcting those errors as you went along. For this read-through pay attention to the overall story arc. Make sure that it makes sense and that everything is in order.
I get that there are just natural breaks for chapters, but now is a good time to check how long each chapter is. I’ve found about ten pages per chapter (that’s about 4000-5000 words) is a good fit. My first draft had chapter one being fifty pages! That was about 1/5 of the book. Breaking it into smaller pieces just made sense.
Next, I bit the bullet and bought a subscription to Grammarly Premium. It is an online grammar checking service that found hundreds of mistakes that my word processor had not. You upload the files (each chapter individually, there is a 60 page limit to each document) and then the software will flag each error one by one.
Besides checking for spelling there are checks for punctuation, clarity, and even repetitiveness. If you enjoy writing, these are likely things you really want to avoid! I didn’t take all of the advice offered, but having the software flag things that you might have just read over (like having “fare” instead of “fair”) was really helpful. I’d definitely recommend it as a first check on your work.
Just a note on Grammarly, you will see a lot of your formatting missing in the program. That formatting is still there, and will come back once you move the files back into your word processor. So don’t waste time putting in “missing” tabs or breaks.
Grammarly will then allow you to download a corrected copy of your work back to your computer. Be sure to save these files in their own folder and change the names of the documents to indicate that they have been through grammar check.
The third and final step is to use your word processor’s “Read Aloud” function. In Microsoft Word it is under the “Review” tab.
This will take a while, but it will flag many little mistakes (like using the word “it” instead of “in”) that you as the author would skip right over. Listen carefully, and be sure to read along. Whenever something doesn’t sound right go back and correct it. For example, if you used the word “chose” instead of “choose” you’ll hear it.
You are getting close now! Go on to Step 6: Preparing For Publication!
Every writer is different, and so how you write is different. I think of writing as art, so it is okay to draw outside the lines sometimes! Styles will be different, so opinions will be different. That is okay!
For me, I tend to get an idea, and I will then play the scene in my head repeatedly until I’m sure I have it right. In that regard a lot of thinking goes into it before I even start to write. Then I’ll make a rough draft of the scene that I’ll come back to the next day to reread with fresh eyes
If I am ever stuck on a scene, I’ll pray and then just start writing. I’ll let the characters tell me what they would do. I listen carefully to hear what they would say. I try not to let my own desires get in the way and just let what the scene is meant to be, be. It’s surprising sometimes when the story then begins to go in a direction you hadn’t thought, but is better that way.
Just as you are carefully maintaining the outline, you are going to want to carefully manage your files. File names should include the date they were written such as: “Title_ChapterX_31719” where 31719 would indicate March, 17 2019.
I usually have one folder for the files I am currently working on and additional folders (marked “Completed Work”) for work that is done. If you are going to make major changes (like deleting an entire section) it is a good idea to make a copy of the file as a record of what used to be there. Move that copy into a folder marked “Deleted Scenes”, then rename the old file you just copied with an updated name to indicate the date you changed everything.
For now, keep each chapter in its own file. You won’t combine them until you are almost ready to publish. This will make working with the files easier.
Be sure to back up your work carefully. I use OneNote to back up my files every week or so. You might also email each file to yourself each time you complete a chapter. The last thing you want is to lose all of your hard work because your computer died!
See how easy that was? That only took a few years, right? Now on to Step 5: Edit!
A good outline is key in helping to save time. I didn’t do this at first, and so I ended up having to go back frequently to read what I had already written, just to remember details or to see if a detail had already been mentioned.
I’m not saying don’t write down a scene if it is speaking to you, but before you write too much make sure you have a basic idea where you are going and when certain things are going to be revealed. Since I am a bit of a free writer, I’ll sometimes start a passage only to have it end differently than I expected. That’s because I want the outcome to be organic and not contrived.
That’s okay! After you are done with a passage be sure to update the outline to include a little bit about what the passage is about, and any important information revealed during it. This is just so you can find the information quickly when you are writing the next piece.
For the type of writing I do (fantasy fiction) I also wrote down a list of all the characters with notes on their appearance, age, and background. Keep the list in alphabetical order so you can reference it as needed.
You might also need a list of all places mentioned, with notes on where they are located. I drew a crude map so I could make sure the geography made sense. If I ever get better at drawing I’ll include the map someday!
Finally, I made a timeline noting when different things happened including all events mentioned in the book, even if they went back 20 or so years from the start. This is an additional way to organize your thoughts and make sure that there aren’t any glaring mistakes. You don’t want to end up with a character who is twenty-seven forever (or maybe you do!).
These are things you will be updating as you go along. Before any major changes, you might want to copy the files and tuck them away in a folder, just in case you want to go back to see what they used to say.
Next will be Step 4: Write!
Beyond Arden 