I do some creative writing too, and can save things for a very long time, agonizing over details. But life as a programmer has taught me to just ship it. Writing and code are never perfect, no matter how perfectionist I am.

So I really feel sorry for Harper Lee -- there were probably 300 pages of good writing that went up in smoke because she set an impossible standard for herself. My advice to you all is to seek high quality, but remember that eventually worse is better, and it's time to ship it.