Thank you for your essay. I tend to compulsively rewrite. out of the reasons you cite and because, well, my rough drafts are so bad that another rewrite never hurts. One of writing’s seductions is that a manuscript is a relationship you never have to end, and severing that relationship is never final if you choose to renew it. Doesn’t sound healthy, does it? I was once in a critique group where a woman had been rewriting the same novel for more than 20 years. She could not let go.