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Viliam_Bur comments on Sunk Costs Fallacy Fallacy - Less Wrong
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I think it is simply a planning fallacy in action. More precisely: you are already in the middle of the old project, so you already see many problems, and the planning fallacy is weaker there. In the new project you haven't encountered any problem yet, so the planning fallacy is strong there. This is what gives you an illusion that the new project is much simpler. Maybe it is not on congnitive level, but on emotional level -- the old projects feels like "a lot of hard, boring work" and the new project feels like "exciting low-hanging fruit". Am I right?
At least for me this effect is rather strong, sometimes absurdly strong. I'll give you an example:
I was writing a book, hundred pages already finished, hundred more pages waiting to be written. My emotions gradually went from excitement, through "flow", to boredom, progressing to hate. So I stopped writing and started thinking: perhaps I should give up on this book and do something else instead. But what? What are my long-term goals and what are my dreams? So I imagined some possibilites, weighted their emotional appeal, made some connections like "this would help me do that" or "this and this could be made at the same time", and finally it became obvious to me that the coolest thing I could do would be writing a book, more specifically, exactly the kind of book I was writing right now. And the feeling was so strong, my emotions really wanted to stop writing the old boring book, and to start writing the new exciting exactly the same book; logically it did not make any sense, but my emotions felt that this time it would be perfect, because the imaginary book is always more shiny and easier to write than the real book. So... It's easy to see the mistake when your emotions are telling you that "X is much better than X". It's more difficult if your emotions, following the same algorithm, come to conclusion that "Y is much better than X". But the essence is that when you compare real with imaginary, the imaginary always wins. The new project seems better because it is imaginary yet.
If all of the writers I know are to be believed, this actually happens with every book-- halfway through, no one wants to finish. They're usually glad they do, though. I wonder what that's all about.
The obvious solution that comes to mind is to write along a smooth fitness curve, where at any given point you have a valid book.
This is probably not a good idea, but might be worth trying.
I wonder how one would do that for works of fiction, where half of a work of fiction is not a work of fiction that's half as long.
By not writing in chronological order: Start with a brief plot summary, then just start filling in details in random places. When a section grows to long for a single chapter, split it in half, etc.
Ah. That method would be workable for people who write from an outline, assuming they don't end up changing it too much along the way, but very unworkable for many writers.
Maybe writing is different from every other form of art I know of, but if it isn't if you want to be a good author you really should learn to write both with and without outline, and both how to stick with it and how to be flexible about it, at will. Not until you have tried all the combination can you really tell which works best for you in the long run, as opposed to which you happened to learn first due to historical accident or the like.
Thanks for the information -- now I feel less stupid. :D
When I write, my mood goes through waves. Sometimes I feel skilled and full of energy, sometimes I feel tired and unable to do anything good. I guess everyone starts writing book at their best point,but this will not last long enough. Later it feels like I started something that I am unable to finish, but I must go on anyway, and I feel like I am doing something totally worthless. Also I guess many people underestimate the time it will take them. So in addition to feeling incompetent there is a feeling "this was supposed to be finished already; am I going to write this forever?" Also I gradually change opinion on what is the best way to write; but I cannot start rewriting already finished parts, because then I would really never finish the book.
When I wrote short stories, I always started with a good idea and I thought "this will be my best story ever". I wrote it in one day (when I stopped, I was usually unable to finish the story later). Next day the story seemed completely stupid. So I just put it away, and a week later when I read it again, I concluded that it is actually not bad. With short stories these mood swings don't matter, because when they come, the story is already finished. With book these mood swings relate to the previous chapters. It is like "the first part of the book is great, but this chapter I wrote yesterday is completely horrible, I really should rewrite it, but I can't, because I am already too far behind the schedule, I just hope today I will write something less horrible, but I don't really believe it."
I suggest spending some time in the internetspace inhabited by writers and either asking or just absorbing answers. There are a lot of articles on hollylisle.com, which is geared toward fiction, but if you don't know where to start...
yes you are. I'll add this to my considerations.