For the Love of Stories: How Sarabeth Erdner ‘23 Became a Published Author

Publishing a book is no easy feat. Neither is surviving college as a freshman. Doing both at the same time is arguably much more challenging, but that’s exactly what Sarabeth Erdner, student at Texas A&M, did and is planning to do again in her second year of college.

Erdner, a current sophomore English Honors student with an Anthropology minor, started writing when she was around 16 years old. Her first book was inspired by a story she had read about the infamous pirate Bartholomew Roberts. Set in the 18th century, her historical fiction novel started as a fun pastime, but at the urging of her family and one of her teachers, she decided to self-publish the novel in January of this year.

But like all great stories, Erdner’s journey as a published author wasn’t all that easy. When Erdner started writing, it took a passion for story-telling and a lot of perseverance—a trait Erdner has cultivated since 3rd grade when she was diagnosed with dyslexia.

“Writing and reading were very challenging for me,” Erdner said. “But my teacher found in me an absolute love for stories, to the point where I was willing to read a page just to get more of the story.”

This love of stories persisted even as Erdner began her first novel. “Honestly, I just kind of wrote it for fun when I had time, and it kind of became an addiction,” Erdner said. “I would think about it all the time.”

Even for someone who loved stories, writing a novel was daunting. To handle the intimidating process, Erdner looked to other authors, books, and her own experiences for guidance, noticing how other writers used certain techniques to capture and hold a reader’s attention.

“It's almost the psychology of it, or getting into the reader’s mind and figuring out what’s easier for them and also what’s enough to make them interested and feel respected,” said Erdner, describing her approach to writing. “[An] author knows the tricks of how to catch a reader’s attention, how to keep a reader’s attention, where to hold the meat of the story, the excitement, the climax, and when to feed their reader so they don’t lose interest or become too confused.”

As many writers already know, the writing process can be grueling at parts, filled with uninspired moments. “No matter what you’re writing, a lot of people picture it being this process that just flows and happens and what you write, it’s perfect, but it’s a lot harder than that,” Erdner said. “The challenging parts are the parts where you are not inspired. The parts where you don’t really have anything necessarily in mind.”

Pushing through these uninspired moments doesn’t always produce uninspired results, as Erdner found in her own writing. “A lot of the time, when I do push through and go ahead and write something, it’s good enough that I can fix it or it ends up being a lot better than I would have thought,” she said. “You can work with something. You can’t work with nothing.”

For aspiring authors, Edner offered this advice: “Don’t be constrained by whatever reason you give yourself or whatever your interpretations are for how you should do something. If you want to write a book, sit down. Do it.”

Erdner plans to become a professor of creative writing in the future, and wants to continue writing on the side. In addition to the book she published in January, she also has two other books she is currently working on. One was published in November and the other is currently in the revision and formatting stage. Her published novel, The Royal’s Fortune, is now available on Amazon.