In case it wasn't clear from my last post: I'm stuck in endless rewriting hell. Again. How do I keep winding up here? How???

Two reasons leap to mind: first, this is just the toughest, densest, most complex part of my chapter. It is hard. Second, I have all these little bits of stuff--ideas, observations, claims, counter-claims, etc.--and not only is it hard to organize them in a sensible fashion, but it is hard to keep them all in my head at once, to make sure they are coherent and do not contradict one another.

In response to the latter issue, I have decided to pause in my writing and to work through a detailed outline before I go back. Usually my outlines are rather rough-and-ready affairs, but this one needs to be more ramified. Son is napping now, so I'm going to dig right in, I guess.

If only I knew just where to grab this whole mess first, though! And that obnoxious Do-Re-Mi song keeps playing in my head like a taunt: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..."