What's the #1 Problem with Writing a Historical Novel?

The answer to that question is easy; the solution to the problem is hard. Do I research Greenwich Village in the 1930s, or do I write? If a writer should write very day and I have only a brief window in the evenings, then I should write, right? (haha)

The problem with using my time to write is that I keep having to put blanks in where street or building names should go. My characters turn corners into nowhere and buy food at blank grocery store. After a while, I feel as if, despite the research I've already done, I can't write a coherent paragraph without getting the geography down.

So I draw a map with the streets in place and the begin to populate it with buildings that I want to mention and the streets where my characters live. Filling in maps takes a long time because you have to draw them and fill them in, and the only way to know what to put where is to  . . . research. So I read yet more books or look up more websites and then realize that I haven't written--actually put words on paper--for days, which means that I've lost my mojo and have to sit down to write at the same time every night to get it back.

Stumbling around in the story, writing sentences and scenes that are so bad I can hardly stand to write them and know they won't make it into even the 1st version of the novel, I push on until the writing is smoother and makes more sense and might make it into the first draft, a relief.

Next time I write a historical novel, I think I'll place the protagonist in the desert--a large one with no recorded history so that I can make up whatever I want, and it will be true because I say so. Greenwich Village is no desert and for some reason that now eludes me, I've chosen one of its most complex periods to write about it.

As a result, not only do I struggle to divide my writing time between actual writing and doing research, I also need to organize that research better so that I form a coherent picture of what life looked like in GV in 1932. As it is, I have tons of information gathered in Excel spreadsheets, notebooks, Word notes, slips of paper, books scattered all over the floor. You would never know to look at my desk that the rest of my life tends to be overly organized. Here, chaos wins. My fear is that if I take the time to organize all of this information and to gather more and organize it, I'll never write the novel.

So I know the question but not the answer. For now, I'll keep lunging between the three poles--writing, researching, organizing--until perhaps I develop that complete vision I need to write without pause, the names and places all falling beautifully into place, creating a world of their own. Then I'll know I've done enough to focus on the one thing that really matters: writing the story.