Delete before you die

I often joke that I have deleted all of my fitful, first attempts at novels in fear that my wife might someday attempt to posthumously publish the drivel in order to make a buck. It happens more often than you might expect.

And honestly, you would not want to read those first attempts. They read like bad Dean Koontz novels, and I don’t even like Dean Koontz.

It appears that I am not the only one wary  of posthumous publication. Franz Kafka seemed well aware of it as well. His last words, uttered on his death bed:

Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, (is) to be burned unread.