Whew. Panic averted! I woke up this morning, looked at Dark Talent again.... and liked it. Whaddya know? Sure, there was some messy writing in the first draft, but I can fix that. I spent this morning (and most of last night) working on cleaning up the messy bits, while ideas circulated in the back of my head about the lingering larger issues of plot and character. And guess what? I can do it. I can fix it. This is still a darned good novel (she said modestly). I'm excited about it again. I think yesterday's panic was...well, very useful, actually, in getting myself moving. Hmm.