After an embarassingly long time with my first novel including much development of my writing, innumerable redrafts and massive structural changes (such as shortening the storyline from 35 years down to 3 weeks, for example), I know the story is finished and there is nothing further to explore at this point.

The trouble is...

After an embarassingly long time with my first novel, it has become too familiar and too vivid to me so that everything feels bland and pale by comparison.

I have had a few ideas for new novels, even written a blurb or two that I think could sell a (finished) novel to Joe Punter, but where the first one came to me as a last page (and so gave me an irresistible writing motivation to find a way to get to it), all I am coming up with now are first pages... and the second page just doesn't seem to offer any scope.

Obviously, I know, it will take a while to reverse out of the cul-de-sac of novel 1 so as to immerse myself in novel 2 in all its glory... but I just can't let go.

So, to the serial novelists among you, how did you pick project number two?

G

I think I let them all hang around, while I get on with real life. I write bits of short stories to keep my hand in, I read my head off... and eventually one of them does grow a last page to go with the first page.

(Good to know you're a know-the-end type, like me, incidentally. I wish creative writing was talked about and taught from the end more of the time: it would save so much trouble de-meandering things.)

If nothing seems to have legs, it's probably because you're not ready to embark on a big project yet: novel 1 is still dominating.

It could be worth trying to develop some of those first pages into a short story. You can see the end from the beginning when it's only 10 pages away - it's a hop and a skip to get there, and there's nothing riding on it. Doesn't matter if it's rubbish, doesn't matter if you don't make it work. But you do have to end up with a beginning, a middle and an end of some kind, so you get back into the way of thinking something through to its conclusion, which is good exercise and gives you a creative sastisfaction, however minor, that you don't get with abandoned bits and pieces. It's a good way to experiment with possible voices and settings, and you might find that in doing so one of them turns out to be a novel after all... At the very least you might get some stories to put into comps and so on, and pick up a pub credit or two.

Emma

Personally I go for the 'what if?' scenarios. I'm sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle asked himself 'What if dinosaurs were still alive - where would they be? What if someone found one?' before he went on to write The Lost World. Put a coulpe of 'what if's together and you've got a plot.

de-meandering

An irregular verb, methinks but one I like.

you're a know-the-end type

I think it depends on what I'm writing. The really short stuff, the flashes, often start with a question ("is it possible to write in the second person without being unutterably naff?", "why did she leave work at 5PM, precisely?"). But I think the bigger pieces need to have something to shoot at even if only to let me know when I've got there!

G

When my last contract came to an end, and I suddenly had the freedom to do what I liked, I became paralysed and couldn't settle to a project. It was an awful feeling and something I'd never experienced before. I dithered between four or five ideas. It went on for months. In the end I plumped for one and just began it, kind of accepting that it might not work out.
HB x

I became paralysed

Yoinks.

A satisfactory recovery, I trust?

When my last contract came to an end

I too benefit from a gun to the head on occasion.

I dithered between four or five ideas.

Ah... to have an idea worth dithering over...

It's really hard to let go, especially with your first novel. It's a bit like the first time you fall in love and so hard to leave those characters behind. I think I have at last, but only very recently, and only after writing another entire novel in the meantime. But, I still yearn after that original story...

Re second person (which I know this thread isn't, really), I'm reading Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light (thank you Sarah at the Firestation BookSwap!) and it's in second person and it's wonderful, so far at least. Does beautifully something which I'd have said was next-to-impossible.

It's really hard to let go, especially with your first novel.

Must admit, I don't suffer from this. By the time a novel's had all the work it needs, I love it to bits still but I'm bored to tears with it, and frustrated by having to put everything else on hold - it's like the child who won't leave home even though they're well into their twenties... Which isn't to say that I don't re-work characters and ideas that refuse to go away. Gaius, would it be easier to let go if you knew that all those ideas and characters and so on aren't going anywhere. The far side of Two, you'll know much more about how to write One, as Three...

Emma

Me too, Emma.
I'm always glad to see the back of it, and am desperate to move on. The new one is always going to be sooooooo much better LOL.
HB x

Gaius, would it be easier to let go if you knew that all those ideas and characters and so on aren't going anywhere.

Not sure I'm hanging on! Have tossed number one away without a thought and subsequently been trawling the novel equivalent of single's bars... Except I can only seem to meet air-headed bimbo novel ideas with no flesh on their bones when what I am lookng for is something more... Rubenesque. The meaningless one-night flashes are fun and all that, but... you know...

Ah - now I understand. You are not without ideas, you are just concerned that they are cul-de-sacs.

Might it be that in fact one or a couple will do fine, but you are being hard on yourself/them?

I have to say that I am the opposite. I always assume that every idea will turn into an award winning bestseller. My way of sorting them, though, might work equally well in your situation.

I write the driving idea of the book down. Then I flesh it out with my MCs, my plot, my themes etc. If it doesn't stand up to more than two pages of notes, it's just a 'twinkle'. If it does, it might, just might, be going somewhere.
The true decider for me is when I hit upon a structure. How will this story be told? Is there a structure I'm dying to try? Does the story lend itself to any particular structure?
If yes, then off you go. Within ten pages you will know.
HB x

You're probably not going to get Rubanesque until several chapters in and you're starting to put flesh on those bimbos.

you're starting to put flesh on those bimbos

An intriguing approach to consider philosophical depth as a factor of calorific intake. Which, no doubt, offers a potent explanation of Buddha. To be fair, it is true that sitting on your arse all day while contemplating the infinite does aid in the expansion of the mind as well as the waist.

If it doesn't stand up to more than two pages of notes, it's just a 'twinkle'.

Helen, that's a great approach and I planned something similar once I knew I was close to the end of the first. Still not getting even as _much_ as two pages at the moment.

The problem is that the first was kind of an exploration of the possible circumstances leading up to a specific ending which I was not, on a moral or intellectual level, entirely comfortable with (and am still in a number of minds about). Whereas, what I have now is a series of (to me) a priori statements of actual life beliefs for which there is no mystery...

And, actually, that might give me the best approach... to become my own devil's advocate and to write them the other way? Hmm.

G

Gaius, would it be easier to let go if you knew that all those ideas and characters and so on aren't going anywhere.

Apologies, that was very sloppy writing. What I meant was, those Book One people aren't going to escape you or melt into the ether - they'll still be there to come back to if/when you realise you know how to do it. You're not abandoning a project, you're putting it aside for now.

I rather agree with Helen, that it's when I realise the structure, or the end (which as aforementioned, gives you the structure) that I know whether the idea has legs.

to become my own devil's advocate and to write them the other way?

Never does any harm.

Another possibility is to accept an idea that seems vaguely promising, and think up the people and situation which will embody it. Once you really focus on them, rather than just trying to illustrate the idea better, you may find they help you, if that doesn't sound too airy-fairy.

Emma

I usually start with a couple of scenes, and it's not until I'm around 15K in that I've built up a couple of pages of notes and a plan.
You may find that as you put more stuff in then the connections start appearing and your plot will take off - it's the old adage where the first 3 chapters are where you introduce the story to yourself, before you start writing for the reader.