This is the best writing advice I’ve ever read how to write a novel:

“So how do you write a novel? Simply do the best you can every day during the writing, finish the book, fix the mistakes a trusted first reader finds, and mail the thing or publish the thing and start the next book.

There is no such thing as a perfect book and the more you work to make a book perfect, the more you turn it into a polished stone with no character or voice. Leave your book rough, leave your voice alone, mail the book to an editor or indie publish the book and do another.

There is no perfect book. Never has been, never will be. And you certainly won’t write the first one. Sorry.”

{Dean Wesley Smith}