[danieltillett]

This is why you should not ever dedicate yourself to a single project no matter how much you believe in it. You should at a minimum have one back up project that will generate publishable results no matter what happens.

[chiefalchemist]

You should always have some "R&D" regardless of what you do, what you're working on, etc.

Focus is great. But it has a tendency to create blinders, feed confirmation bias, etc.