Second Drafts: To Rewrite or Refine?

This is a question I ask myself with repetitive frequency in my current labors with the Amren project. My initial writing process normally involves its own kind of in-process-edit, so I've been fortunate enough to have several first writes make it to the final edition on several smaller projects, but Amren has been long enough in the workings that I can see a certain level of growth within my own writing between the beginning and the end. Several passages, like tonight's project involving an extra-planar entity, are just plain lousy. I've even updated it once before. Was I not paying -any- attention to diction??

I could rewrite. I could probably make it a lot better. Yet despite its coarseness, I still suffer that illogical clinginess that writers often have for pet projects. Against my own better judgment, I decided on the "refine" version of second drafts.

I'm not done yet. But halfway through, I'm pleased with the results thus far. The events of the scene weren't particularly imaginative or dramatic, but often it's the desperate grasping for mundane necessities (breath; water; solid ground; life) that makes a story ring true. This particular "maxim" might seem out of place in a story involving alternate realities, but I don't think Amren would disagree with me. No matter what plane he is in, maintaining his flesh in an unbroken state ranks very high on his list of interests.