I find that I can edit and polish as I go, and that makes re-writes much quicker and a whole lot less time-consuming: a big plus! I've started recently keeping an 'x-file' for each of my mss., in which I deposit all the bits and pieces I've edited out, just in case I decide later that I want them for something else. That seems to have taken care of the problem of losing parts that I wish I'd kept: the one problem that writing on the computer has in my book.

Writing is like breathing: one really can't get along without it...