I've been trying to write a novel for about a year now, using the planning approach as best I can figure it out. It's been a struggle because I feel like I need to take more of the pants approach except that I have an axe to grind and I want the story to do it, so it's been a big conflict between the two approaches. My latest compromise has been to try to define the story progress as a series of high-level situations for the characters, then "pants them out" to see how they work together. I'm really pretty stuck on it though, so I can't say I'd recommend doing whatever it is that I'm doing, at least if you want to finish a story in just one lifetime.
I hear you, this one that I'm in the editing process of now (which is hell) is my third attempt at writing a novel.
What made this one get to some semblance of done is that I forced myself to write 1000 words a night. And the bulk of it was horrible rambling string of consciousness crap. But it force me to exercise the writing muscles. Then I later just filtered out the crap, and luckily found a couple of good lines here, a neat character there. And it sort of just worked out. It's making a habit out of it that really counts.
