Crux

I've been trying to write the same novel for a year. I started brainstorming in March 2005... using notepad and other computer resources to jot down ideas, characters, quotes, vocabulary words, and a plot outline. It is now February 2006, yet I am still in the same brainstorm stage; only now I'm rewriting, editting, and altering ideas, characters, and my outline.

I have every character (more than a dozen and less than twenty) detailed extensively, and a summary of every chapter I plan to write (100 chapters). I know the entire plot from beginning to middle to end and the makeup of every single character... so I have all the direction I need to write the novel.

Yet for an entire year, all I have done is record every idea that has come to mind in notepad. As you can imagine, I now have a giant clusterf*ck of information. Eventually I sorted through the cluster and organized it, but after adding more ideas and editting old ones, I have formed another cluster. The clustering stresses me out because I want to include every idea, but there is such an overload of information that I am turned away from writing the novel itself!

That brings me to my next problem... I can only write so far into my novel before I want to start over. I have been editting and rewriting the beginning chapters for a year, as well. At one point I got up to chapter 17, but now I'm back to writing chapter 1. Even when I'm satisfied with a chapter after just finishing it... I will change my mind about it a week or so later. I know the product is good enough, yet I constantly want to try and make it better. I succeed at making the chapter better a majority of the time (or so I think), but come on, at this rate... what will I ever achieve? This is simply a bad habit that I am unable to restrain myself from. If all I ever do is brainstorm, edit characters, and rewrite the beginning chapters... how do I ever expect to finish the novel?

I have tried to overcome this by myself, and after a year's failure, I am seeking help from others.

Any advice someone can offer to a person as stubborn as myself?

It's also hilariously ironic and sickening to note that I re-read and editted my post many times before submitting it.

SxThorntonxS

You have to just submit to the fact that you will always want to change things. Dont start over. Jot down things to change on a seperate sheet, but concentrate on finishing it and completing the story. Keep it in your mind that your revisions can wait.

100 chapters? Are these short chapters? This maybe a little long. You want perfection, but honestly i dont know anyone that thinks any work they do is perfect, so just concentrate on finishing. Even if its crap the first time around.

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Crux

Yep, they are short chapters. And yeah, I know perfection is impossible, but I strive for it, anyway. That is why I am so stubborn.

Good advice, though. Hopefully I can submit myself... but I will always have the overwhelming desire to start over... which is extremely difficult for me to restrain.