Writing Big Year: Work wasted?

I pored over dusty ancient reports, official histories, participants’ memories . . . Took notes. Fashioned my notes into a chronological “catch-all” document. I stepped back and pondered what had been collected and then fashioned a “plot,” a sensible causal sequence of “what happened” way back then. Right now, I’m writing up what the world did with radioactive waste management in the early years. It’s important because this predetermines what we’re doing now. I write . . . and damn, it’s crystal clear that throughout all that labour, I’d missed the damned point!