100,000 Versions of the Same Novel

I was looking back through some old computer files, trying to find a particular scene from a long-ago version of my novel because I thought I might be able to use it in this current revision. For seem reason, seeing all those versions of my novel kind of depressed me. Like over a decade's worth of versions, each holding my little fragile dream of success in its pages. Seriously any one of them could have been the one, but instead they are all just little ugly, deformed clones of one another that didn't work out. A friend of mine shook me out of the bad feeling by saying that every novelist has files and files of versions of the same book, and that all those ones that didn't work are like stepping stones to the one that does work, at least we hope like hell it works, as indicated by the use of the present tense. (Do you mice have this experience?) I don't usually succumb to feelings of regret, especially about my work, but it did kind of bum me out. Like: Why is this taking so long? Why do I have to be the one to write the same book for 13 years? Why can't I be like Joyce Carol Oates who whips out a book every ten minutes? Then I found this Thoreau quotation, which I share with you above. Oh, and, by the way, I did find the scene I was looking for in a version from 1999, and I am able to use it in the new version, so all is not lost.