Is it my imagination, or does your second link lead right back here? Is this symbolic of the novel’s progress?

Arr, ’tis fixed. Thank ye kindly, Gillian.

There should be a third mark: Where has my life gone? Recently I had email dialogue with an upcoming crime author (no names), and he didn’t suprise me when he said that the progress of his first novel entailed making people (around him) unhappy (the writing, hours, etc).

I presume this just covers the first draft of a novel, the beginning of a novel’s existence. The graph would be considerably bumpier if it included re-writes, but more realistic, more educational, and less amusing if it did.

The true dark night of the soul is when you know a novel is broken but you don’t know how to fix it.