Useless time, vital time

I'm stuck on a plot point in Overthrowing Heaven. I've been staring at and experimenting with answers to this particular problem for a few days, but I still haven't found a solution I like. Intellectually, I'm sure I will. Right now, though, I feel completely useless, as if I'm wasting my time.

I could always settle for one of the answers that isn't quite good enough and hope to fix it later, or even brush past that point in my plotting and move on. Anything would feel more useful than staring at blank pages in my notebooks and engaging in endless dialog with myself.

Except that I also know this time isn't useless. Quite the opposite: if my subconscious won't accept any of the current answers, it's because they aren't good enough. This time is crucial, a vital part of the process of creating a book I can feel good about.

So much of writing embodies contradictions like this one: feeling useless while doing vital work, knowing you're producing crap but soldiering ahead anyway. I wonder if someday I'll get to a better, easier, happier process.

Until then, though, I'll go back to gnawing at this plot bone.