I know that some authors work closely with their beta readers on their stories as they go, to get feedback on what is working and what isn't so they don't end up having to go back and fix tons of stuff later. I don't know if you've been discussing your novel with a friend - even someone who's not a writer - as you've been working on it, but maybe that is a way to get some sort of touchstone opinion and see if you're not way off the mark.
I did NaNoWriMo once, using that technique of just writing without planning (much), and the problem is, once I hit the 50,000 words, I felt like I'd achieved what I'd set out to do and I stopped writing because I didn't really have any idea of how to wrap things up. So I think that it's a good idea to have at least an overall plan, with the writing goal not being a number of words, but a point in the story that you want to get the characters to. But that's an issue of motivation as well, which I have major problems with anyway.
I can totally relate to the writing!ADD as well. I have only one more installment in my 5-part Sherlock fic to go, and I sat down yesterday after lunch, telling myself I was just going to write the thing (I know exactly what's going to happen, I just need to put the words down on the screen), and lo and behold, all of a sudden it was 10 pm and I'd written maybe 100 words. I literally spent the entire afternoon and evening flipping back and forth between email, facebook, LJ, and news sites. Turning off the browser doesn't work for me either, because when I write, I constantly have things I have to look up (how far is it from London to Altnaharra in Scotland, what does an industrial food dehydrator look like, just how radioactive is plutonium). I can't just leave gaps and say I'll come back later, because these details can be major factors in the direction the story takes.
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I did NaNoWriMo once, using that technique of just writing without planning (much), and the problem is, once I hit the 50,000 words, I felt like I'd achieved what I'd set out to do and I stopped writing because I didn't really have any idea of how to wrap things up. So I think that it's a good idea to have at least an overall plan, with the writing goal not being a number of words, but a point in the story that you want to get the characters to. But that's an issue of motivation as well, which I have major problems with anyway.
I can totally relate to the writing!ADD as well. I have only one more installment in my 5-part Sherlock fic to go, and I sat down yesterday after lunch, telling myself I was just going to write the thing (I know exactly what's going to happen, I just need to put the words down on the screen), and lo and behold, all of a sudden it was 10 pm and I'd written maybe 100 words. I literally spent the entire afternoon and evening flipping back and forth between email, facebook, LJ, and news sites. Turning off the browser doesn't work for me either, because when I write, I constantly have things I have to look up (how far is it from London to Altnaharra in Scotland, what does an industrial food dehydrator look like, just how radioactive is plutonium). I can't just leave gaps and say I'll come back later, because these details can be major factors in the direction the story takes.