And maybe it's because I read something good yesterday that I woke up this morning with two things -- an image and a bit of character insight.
The image is of a teenage girl cartwheeling across the quadrangle lawn in the very early morning -- but not just cartwheeling. Doing handsprings and round-offs and back flips and whatever else a gymnast can do on a flat surface. And she isn't happy, which is what you might expect if you thought of a girl doing cartwheels. She is furious and passionate.
There's a boy watching her, starting to fall in love, though he doesn't know it yet.
Even better, I know why she's doing cartwheels, and knowing why unlocks a whole set of emotional motivations, a sequence, that makes a new chunk of the novel fall into place with a glorious, "ahhhh..." I love when that happens. I still have to write the damn scenes, of course, but now I know why I'm writing them, where before it was all darkness and confusion.