So what I keep hearing is that the process for writing every book is different... with the remarkable exception of the visits from the suck monkey about a third of the way in, and again about 2/3rds of the way in. Up until a third of the way in, you've got great ideas, great characters, and then you realize that they've got to Get To The End Somehow. And suddenly everything sucks.
I'm very nearly there now with the novel I started in January (which is frustrating because if I'm lucky, I've got 20,000 words on it). I haven't touched it in two months because... because there's the voice in the back of my head saying, It sucks! and telling me I need to rethink it, re do it, or give up. Heck, I wanted to rewrite GM from the ground up a month ago even though in January I was ready to just shove it out the door and hope that it didn't trip over its shoelaces.
I think that sometimes you just have to write it. You can go back and fix problems, but sometimes you never know if the problems you see now really are problems until you actually get to the end. And if you're not at the end, then there's still an opportunity to change the problems you see coming up.
My guess is, though, that you'll get to the end and go back through and realize that you knew what you were doing all along, even if you didn't trust that initially.
As far as re-using plot/theme... it happens. We write the things we want to read and we write the things that we care about. You can fix the 'first-novel errors' when you revise. You can't ever get to 'revise' (not really) unless you finish.
Granted, if you do feel like you're writing the same novel all over again and you don't want to, then you've got a whole other problem that may lead back to the "I'm a third/halfway into it and it sucks" problem that lots of people run into...
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Date: 2003-08-01 10:39 pm (UTC)I'm very nearly there now with the novel I started in January (which is frustrating because if I'm lucky, I've got 20,000 words on it). I haven't touched it in two months because... because there's the voice in the back of my head saying, It sucks! and telling me I need to rethink it, re do it, or give up. Heck, I wanted to rewrite GM from the ground up a month ago even though in January I was ready to just shove it out the door and hope that it didn't trip over its shoelaces.
I think that sometimes you just have to write it. You can go back and fix problems, but sometimes you never know if the problems you see now really are problems until you actually get to the end. And if you're not at the end, then there's still an opportunity to change the problems you see coming up.
My guess is, though, that you'll get to the end and go back through and realize that you knew what you were doing all along, even if you didn't trust that initially.
As far as re-using plot/theme... it happens. We write the things we want to read and we write the things that we care about. You can fix the 'first-novel errors' when you revise. You can't ever get to 'revise' (not really) unless you finish.
Granted, if you do feel like you're writing the same novel all over again and you don't want to, then you've got a whole other problem that may lead back to the "I'm a third/halfway into it and it sucks" problem that lots of people run into...
Not sure if that helps or not... *hug*