Sarah Z. Creates

In April of 2017, I started writing a YA fantasy novel (Harbinger).

In December of 2018, I finished my first draft — all 75,538 words of it.

Today, looking down the barrel of December 2019, my first revision is 97,307 words long, and I’m beginning to chisel my way into an almost-final version.

Back in 2017, I didn’t expect to be 2.5 years into this story and not be finished. But as I was cleaning out my office the other day, I realized just how big an accomplishment I’ve achieved.

Harbinger is a marginal novel. Not in importance, but in the way I wrote it: in the margins. Of my time (evenings, lunch breaks, practice sidelines), places (my planner, scraps of paper, random notebooks) and attention (commutes are great for daydreaming through sticky plot points).

But while Harbinger was rarely something I could dedicate large chunks of time to, it was always first for those small, found moments.

I was really hoping to be self-publishing Harbinger by 2020. That probably won’t be the case (revising is hard, y’all!). But that’s OK. Because as long as I keep working on it, keep finding those small moments, I know I’ll be staring at my very first published novel soon enough.