The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I've spent the entire day slogging through a series of events and motivations in the novel. Character A does this, and Character B reacts, causing A to step up his actions, which in turn cause B to freak out, etc. I'd written the scenes at widely disparate moments, and not in linear order, and I was pretty sure they weren't flowing logically.

I'm pleased to report that after ten hours of wrestling, I've got them lined up, and the causal links smoothed out, and everyone's character intact. (I did this by identifying the ten key scenes, then making each of the main characters tell me what happened from his perspective, in the first person. They took their sweet time.)

So I'm gonna have a bowl of ice cream. Haagen-Dazs coffee, with hot gianduja sauce. Then I'm going to write some more. Because it's torture, but it's a good torture, you know?