Part 1

As the publication date approaches for my debut novel, I find myself reflecting on the journey that brought me to this point. I’d thought that I’d share it with you in the hope that it might encourage you to write down the story you have inside you.

The outline

My own story is about how a military officer and public service bureaucrat came to write a work of fiction. When this chapter started, I knew that I’d be retiring after thirty-eight years of full-time work and was wondering what to choose to do with all the free hours that would soon be mine.

My work back then allowed me very little time to read for pleasure, but it was my adult daughter’s love of reading and my son’s undergraduate degree in film production that led me at first to focus on the idea of trying my hand at writing a script. Once you understand the format, a script is a wonderful way to take in a story, in about the same amount of time that it takes to watch a movie.

During the autumn of 2023, I’d already started scribbling down ideas for characters and had settled on a setting for my story, but I knew little about how to tell it, so I decided to enrol in a UCLA Extension course, Film 1, during the spring of 2024. The result by the end of that April, after a solo writing retreat to Carcassonne, France, was a plot outline for ‘What is Hidden’, the working title for what has since become The Myths That Bind Us.

I finished work at the end of June 2024. No longer sure if a script was the best format to tell the story that I wanted to write, I enrolled in two UCLA Extension courses, Film 2 and Novel 1, for the summer, starting the week after my last day of work.

The part in the middle

By the autumn of 2024, my attention had completely shifted to writing my story as a novel and on 31 December 2024, I was happy to have 46,000 words written, many of which have even managed to survive to the end.

Having no prior formal instruction as a writer, I found myself looking for the support of a writing community and returned to the UCLA Extension program for Novel 2 during the winter of 2025. Meanwhile, I was consuming dozens of self-help, ‘how to’ books on story structure and the craft of writing—I’ll post a list of resources, in case you’re looking for your own place to start.

By the summer of 2025, I was reading far and wide, to expand my horizons, to see how writing was done well, and in a search for an answer to the question I got most often from family and friends: what genre is your book? It was in June 2025 that I discovered the wonderful Canadian author, Guy Gavriel Kay’s novel, A Song for Arbonne, and knew what someday I’d like to be able to achieve. (If you like my novel, you’ll love his!)

More than sixty saved versions after my last course had ended, in October 2025 I had what I considered a complete draft zero of my manuscript. It was then that I took the step of sharing it with Tyrell Johnson, from the Darling Axe (darlingaxe.com), for a professional narrative assessment—a big-picture read focused on plot, characters, and voice.

While Tyrell was reviewing my draft, I was listening to podcasts, attending online writing seminars, and reading. It was the feedback that I received from Ty in November 2025, and the example provided by The Bear and the Nightingale (Katherine Arden), that led me to incorporate the folkloric elements that you’ll find in my story.

And it was during one of the seminars that I attended that I first heard about Autocrit (www.autocrit.com), a software program that became my virtual community of beta readers while I worked on my project and considered whether to keep going.

The end of the beginning

Going back to the fall of 2024, I had met a writer friend while travelling who introduced me to The Self Publishing Agency (TSPA) out of Vancouver, Canada. With a complete draft zero in hand, I made the leap in January 2026 to sign on with TSPA (www.theselfpublishingagency.com) to manage the work required to bring my story to publication.

My learning journey, from writer to author, was only just beginning.

Part 2

First Turning Point

After months of tracking characters, objects, timelines and weather in Excel spreadsheets, and experimenting with steps like extracting separate novellas for each of my four point of view characters to review dialogue, metaphors and arcs, by the end of 2025 I had a complete first draft. It was 79,000 words and I’d gone as far as I could on my own. I considered going back to where I’d started, by turning my story into a script, but it seemed the natural thing to do was to keep moving forward.

Going from story ideation to execution would be a big step that required a new mindset if I was ever going to bring my writing to the point of being ready for others to read. If I was going to do my characters and story justice, I decided I needed professional help. I started by searching online for editors but had no experience to help me pick the right skills sets or fit.

After briefly looking into traditional publishing, but not wanting to give up control over my story, I signed on with The Self Publishing Agency, and submitted my draft zero in mid-January 2026. It was the TSPA team, with the leadership of their dynamic CEO, Megan Williams, who would go on to connect me with an incredible group of editors, designers and specialists to bring my project to fruition.

Act 2

By the beginning of February, my manuscript was in the hands of Kimmy Beach (www.kimmybeachediting.com) for developmental editing—substantive editing of characterization, structure and plot. I received Kimmy’s no-nonsense, professional feedback in early March. It took me a month to absorb it all and make needed fixes to improve pacing, clarify points of view, and replace too much telling with showing.

Coincidentally, it was during this period, that I changed the title for my novel. Six months earlier, I had changed the names of my main characters. Looking back at it now, it was these changes that helped me create some distance from what I had already written and see it (somewhat) more dispassionately. By the time I was done this first round of edits, my draft had shrunk from 79,000 to 71,000 words. It was a challenging step in the process for me, but one that I got through thanks to the encouragement of family and friends.

In early April, my revised draft then went to Judith Doyle (www.jehdoylewriter.com) for the next round of developmental editing. Judith returned her comments at the beginning of May and by late that month I was able to send her back an updated manuscript of 73,000 words—the length of the novel that has gone on to be published. More importantly, it was with Judith’s deft guidance that I felt I was finding my voice as an author.

From Judith, the manuscript was handed over to Leonora Stewart (www.reedsy.com/leonora-stewart) in early June for copyedit—a remarkably detailed review for clarity, accuracy, correctness and readability. Leonora’s extraordinary attention to detail ensured that every choice I made was a deliberate one.

After many hours, and with a few all-nighters along the way, I gave editorial sign-off to my finalized manuscript in late-July 2026, six months after my journey with TSPA had begun.

Act 3

Meanwhile, through the month of June, Clint English (www.clintenglish.com) had been conjuring up an amazing cover design, Ashley Russel (www.ashleyrussell.ca) was working through the details of a pleasing, readable interior layout, and Jason Cave (www.blackwidowmedia.ca) had started work on my author website while I was preparing the Author’s Notes—about the inspirations that went into the novel—that you’ll find at the back of the published book.

Finally, there was the proofread during the month of August—the last opportunity to find any spelling errors, or formatting issues that could cast a shadow over the excitement of having put my story out into the world. It was a memorable day in early September when I signed everything off, all of it 100% human written (0% AI Assisted and 0% AI Generated, as tested by Pangram, just to remove all doubt in what seems to be an increasingly wary publishing environment).

While the TSPA team was putting the final touches together for publication, including securing a printer for the special edition cover that will be available for sale from my author website (www.tmcrosby.com) beginning in November 2026, and as Tage Lee was formatting the ePub files for Amazon KDP (The Myths That Bind Us) and IngramSpark, my family and I made a trip back to Carcassonne, France in September so that I could show them where my novel had really taken root. My story had come full circle, even while I was moving forward as a writer and soon to be author.

And then…

I ordered my first copy of The Myths That Bind Us on 1 October, two-years to the day after my last paid day in government, and three years after setting out with the notion of writing a script. Looking back at it now, I can say that writing this novel has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience, one that I would encourage anyone to consider, and likely one that I will repeat.