In the Era of Digital Composition, What Should a Writer Keep? - The New York Times

A novelist friend works on books one draft at a time, and she saves each draft. Another novelist friend works on the computer and keeps just one digital version. They are both successful and prolific; one piece of tacit advice neutralizes the other. I'm more like the second novelist. I already feel overwhelmed by one draft; if I knew that even more imperfect versions of a piece of writing were piling up on a hard drive or in a closet, I wouldn't be able to forget about them until I deleted them or dumped them into the big blue recycling bin in the alley.