"A first draft is a work of construction; the seventh one is the work of an artist." --Barbara Kingsolver. I don't know if you've read Prodigal Summer, but it's one of the most perfectly crafted novels I've ever read. The level of control and mastery of the craft that she shows in that novel, at least in my opinion, is astonishing. But to think that it might have taken her seven drafts to do it. I wonder what the first draft looked like.