I’m behind in reading Locus, so I’ve only just now gotten to the magazine’s interview with Simon Ings from its February 2015 issue. You can read excerpts here, though this section, which resonated with me the most, wasn’t included—

My ex is the agent for Lawrence Durrell’s estate. What’s interesting about Durrell is the amount he threw away. This was a man who could write for his country. He was extraordinarily prolific. But although his body of published work is quite extensive, it’s really tiny compared to what he churned out, and he was very good at throwing stuff away. Because it’s been his centenary, every squirrelly academic from every Midwestem college is saying, “There’s this lost Larry Durrell manuscript that we must publish!” The house is full of bad Larry Durrell, and the agency and the estate are constantly turning down these academics. “He threw this away. The only reason he didn’t discard it in a bin is because he’s a writer and he might need that scene later. This is not for publication.” That’s part of the writer’s job. They published an unpub!ished John Wyndham novel. There’s a reason why it was unpublished. It does him no service whatsoever, because that’s now part of his canon, which is ridiculous because he couldn’t make it work.

Milan Kundera is always on about this: you should be able to lose work.

Why did this passage touch me? Because I’ve been doing my best for years to “lose work,” in part to make sure no future “squirrelly academic” will ever have a reason to make that kind of demand on my heirs. (Not that my work is important enough one ever would, but humor me here.)

My first 25 or so unsold short stories? Destroyed! (Well, save for the first, which I’ve been hanging on to for sentimental reasons.)

My first three unsold novels? Also destroyed!

The first drafts of every other novel or short story I’ve ever written? Save for a few pages from a new piece set aside specifically for the Kickstarter campaign of the anthology Genius Loci—shredded!

I’ve done my best to ensure that any work which doesn’t live up to the rules Kenneth Koch stated in “The Art of Poetry” no longer exists.

As for my early work that did get published but probably shouldn’t have gotten published, well, there’s little I can do about that now save make a promise that while I live it will remain forever uncollected. What happens after I’m gone I know is out of my control.

But what is within my control is to make whatever work no longer says what I want it to say as best as I can say it … disappear.

That Milan Kundera sure is wise. (Simon Ings, too.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few more old manuscripts to burn …