Letting your projects go.

[Lina-Hammami]

Hey there;
I've been working on a novel for five years now. I loved the characters, I visualized them, I deeply developed their relationships with each other and the world around them that I for long time was having dreams about them.
However, five years were not enough to satisfy me about the plot. I built the theme and everything but I always faced that problem of the novel's outline and it was so stressing for me until I let it go. I just decided that it was the end of my project. I stopped stressing a lot about it and now I feel as if I done my characters good to keep them all in my mind scrabbling an event or two in my notebook every now and then.
It was definitely hard for me but I thought many of you can relate to this. So when do you know that it's time to let it go? What do you do to make yourself better out of it?

[Krista Ash]

I can definitely relate, as you guessed. Whenever I let a project go, it's because it doesn't hold my interest anymore, but I always wonder if it's partially because I need to be more disciplined. I don't think how long you've been working on a story is as important as how interested you are in it. If the story is still exciting to me but I'm stuck (like it sounds you are), I'll leaving it alone for a few weeks, or even months, and come back when I'm ready. If I do think it's time to let go (and I don't think I have enough experience to give a general statement of when to do this), I'll jot down the rest of my thoughts on the project, just in case I ever decide to come back to it.