Can You Revise Too Soon?

I’ve been departing from my method of novel-writing lately. With my second novel, I’ve been editing the first half—even though there’s a whole second half just waiting to be written. This is completely against the method I used to finish the first book, which included powering through a messy first draft with no time to edit. The question is: am I focusing my efforts wisely? Or am I stalling myself?

The thing is, the two books are in totally different places. For the first book, I had written three different versions over three years, all of which I scrapped and started again after about 100 words or so. I was totally shaky on my feet. And when I finally, after years of delete-rewrite lunacy, I settled on ONE draft, I was mired in doubt. The only way to move forward, for me, was to completely forget about doubt, accept that this draft wasn’t perfect and never would be, and keep going anyway. I had only one rule: The delete key was entirely off limits.

This second book is different. While it’s not perfect, I pretty much have the plot established in my head—at least the first half. What I’m doing is refining it, not deleting and completely starting over again. I know I won’t achieve perfection. But I do see some problems that I’m thinking if I fix now, I’ll have less work to do on later drafts. So I’m revising—despite my instincts, which say I should just power through. I’m ignoring those this time—in the hope that I’ve learned enough to be able to revise safely and without derailing my entire process, even in the first-draft stage.

Hopefully things will go well. I’m toying with the idea of finishing the entire first half by this weekend. Not sure if I can make it, but….it’s worth a try.