Sarah Z. Creates

I thought finishing my first draft of Harbinger was hard. And it was! I spent years dreaming, drafting, ignoring the insane urge to spend more time copy-editing than writing … but I persevered and finally — FINALLY — got to that finished first draft. Woo-hoo!

I was on to the revising portion. I knew this part was going to be equally challenging, but boy oh boy, did I underestimate the viciousness of the revision process.

You know all those sticky plot points that you skip in the first draft because you just have to get it written? Yep. They’re all still there. Even stickier for the way you wrote around them. All those scenes that weren’t *quite* up to snuff but that you let be because — hey, you’ve got a first draft to finish? Yep. They’re still basking in their not-quite-there ingloriousness. All those characters whose motivations were opaque? They haven’t cleared up at all. AT. ALL.

And I can’t just write around them anymore. These parts are the ones that need to get fixed, and now is the time to fix them. I feel as if I’m spending more time dreaming into this world I’ve created than actually writing, but it’s helping me clear up those motivations and recast those scenes. But it is so, so frustrating not to be able to see the same kind of progress I was making when I was barreling through my first draft.

And that’s probably part of my problem. I have a goal in mind, and I want to meet it. But my creative juices are not moving at the pace of my goals. So at this point, I think I take a deep breath, readjust my dreams and my expectations, and get back to revising.