For real question: Why does everyone want to write novels? They are soooooo much time and work.
I can't speak for anyone else but my reasons are probably as follows:
1. I enjoy reading novels more than any other type of story, and I want to write the type of stories that I would like to read.
2. I like world-building and plotting a lot, and a novel gives me the opportunity to fully invest in a setting and tinker with it and see what works and what doesn't. It challenges me to extrapolate details into a meaningful and coherent vision of a society and think about what that would really mean for the characters in said society.
3. It affords me the oppurtunity to set things up and then have the pay off much later, which makes me feel smart as a writer and rewards the attentive reader. It also lets me spend more time with characters I like and develop them more than I might be able to in a shorter work.
4. I started writing in earnest because of National Novel Writing Month and at the end of it I had a complete and decent quality first draft. It was a surprise to myself that I was able to pull it off and now I'm invested in the work and want to make it the best possible version of itself.
5. In genre fiction it's hard to shake the feeling that publishing a novel is a sign of legitimacy. Of making it, in a sense. Of course, the world of publishing has been completely upended in the last decade so who knows what's really "legitimate" anymore. Note that this is my personal feeling and not intended as a knock against anyone that self-publishes or uses Patreon, micro-press, or a hundred other methods. Those models take work and hustle and smarts and luck and I have nothing but respect for the people who do it successfully. But for me, personally, I don't think I will feel that I have succeeded as an "author" until I have gotten a novel published.
For future consideration, make sure to edit your first book before even writing a sequel.
This is certainly good advice. But the fact of the matter is that I went through beta-reading, completed two rounds of re-writes, and thought it was good enough to justify beginning work on the next book. I didn't want to stagnate or fixate on just one project. Unfortunately, the querying process has made it evident that there are problems with the ending that I overlooked so now it's got to be reworked again. I do think there's a balance to be struck between rushing into a sequel and continuously tinkering with a first book.
