I took a break from rewriting my novel.
I’d thought I had it after experimenting and started moving forward with my rewrite again. I actually got to that same third of the way point from the last draft and started to suspect that, though I’d made a bunch of changes, it still wasn’t enough. The book was still missing something and I was wasting my time writing a second flawed version until I figured out what it was. I finally had to put it aside for a while because I was getting no where.
But I made sure it was a productive break by spending that time doing two exercises to keep me thinking about my rewrite even if I wasn’t actively working on it.
Tangential Research
I decided to do some random research on some topics tangential to the characters and stories so that I was at least doing something. I’d look up some info and then force myself to just do a little journal entry as one of my characters inspired by whatever I had just read.
Did it move the draft forward? Not really. I can’t use any of what I wrote during that time in the final book. But I can’t deny that a lot of what I looked up then informed some of the things I did later. And, most importantly, it gave me a way to get excited about the book again when I was at the point when I hated it the most.
Rethinking the Visuals
One of the hurdles of rewriting the book was simply the fact that I was still picturing it the same way. To combat this, I did something very simple that ended up having a huge effect. The book is set in a fictional location based heavily on a real place. I left the name of the fictional place the same in the book but switched the real location I was basing it on in my head. My new inspiration was very similar to the original place but different enough that I started to think of it differently. I don’t think a reader with both versions would even notice the change but it was a huge shift for me, re-framing how I thought of every scene going forward. The new location also provided, my characters with opportunities the old one hadn’t.
When I saw how well this worked, I did the same with characters and other visual elements until the whole book had a new look in my mind, if not in the draft itself.
Photo by jinterwas 
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Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
I’m finding the same problem as I try to work on the second draft of my first novel (I’ve been a non-fiction/technical writer till now). I got extremely excited writing that draft but, now that the dust has settled, can see the MASSIVE flaws in it. Just seems like a huge job to put it right.
I found taking a complete break of a couple of months useful, then gently going back to it. “Rock your revisions” by Cathy Yardley has given me some structure for the process and I’ve also found that reading both in the same genre and other genres has inspired me. Not in the sense of ripping off the ideas of other writers but simply because it’s got me excited about the genre itself again and by excellent writing.
Good luck!
I usually take at least a month off after a first draft myself, though I find that shorter works, like a play, I seem to be able to get away with only a few weeks off.
But I’m a big believer in the whole “reading similar stuff to keep you in the mindset” philosophy. I have a massive stack of middle grade books I’m working through right now as I plow through a revision of a middle grade book!
Hope you rewriting goes well!