It seems that no one really respects the wishes of writers once they are dead and gone.

And like the better-known names of literature, I sometimes I wonder exactly how I’m going to manage the destruction my personal notebooks after I’m dead. You may think this is superfluous, considering my not writing status, but I certainly do not wish for those bits of fluff to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Jamelah Earle asks a similar question over on litkicks (and does it in far better fashion than I):

The Burning of Laura Instead of Nabokov:

Certainly any artist who has created something and then had an audience interact with the creation knows that the audience is going to interpret that art in ways the artist never thought of or intended, which is, I believe, why some works never see the light of day. Some things are created just for the hell of it, or never quite get perfected enough, or are never completed. And in the end, doesn’t the artist know best which work should be shared and which work shouldn’t?

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