Research and rethink: the value of downtime during a massive rewrite

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...