From what I understand about the craft of writing a novel, in writing said novel it is not advisable to expect that you will take a linear path from idea to published book.

That is to say, the way there is no clear and easy path to you goal.

There are curves and switchbacks. There are hang ups. There might be massive u-turns.

Getting from A to Z is not necessarily straight shot.

I’ve been working on my own craft and building on this advice by implementing what I am calling a writing workflow. Maybe it is that things don’t move in a straight line in general, but in smaller segments maybe those lines are a little less wobbly. Maybe the first draft comes together in a pretty logical way. And then maybe the editing is all over the place too, but as a segment of the journey alone it is less obviously so. Heck, I learned in high school geometry that even a circle can be a whole lot of straight lines connected up in the right way.

Workflow can be a way of moving a project from phase A to phase Z stepwise, so that something new can move into phase A when something done moves into step B. And if the trip from A to Z is a long, winding road, breaking the wobbly, winding trip into manageable straight-shot pieces might make the whole thing a bit less dizzying.