HARLAN ELLISON ON HIS RIGHT TO DESTROY UNFINISHED WORK
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Rick tells me there is a bit of an academic discussion in progress on
Usenet...the subject of which is: "Does an Author have the right--or SHOULD
an Author have the right--to destroy any or all of his/her unfinished work
after his/her death?"  

The basis of this contretremps, I'm told, is that word has leaked out that
I've instructed Susan and my assistant, immediately on the striking of my
passing...or as soon thereafter as conveniently possible...she is to destroy
all of my unfinished stories, burn and stir the ashes of any manuscripts in
progress, do the same to any novels-in-progress, flense all notes and
snippets, tear out all the pages of my working notebooks and in-progress
files and, in short, make it impossible for anyone to ghost-write,
collaborate-to-completion, or "finish" anything incomplete at the moment of
my death.

I won't even deign to dignify the offensive and arrogant presumption of  some
amateur, tyro, boneheaded theorist divorced from Reality who has the
temerity, the naivete, the outright ignorant gall to say an Author DOESN'T
have the absolute and final say-so over his/her creations!
Anyone who takes that position is probably a smug academic creep who thinks
he/she should be the commandant of posterity for an Author's work...that he
or she KNOWS what's best for an Author and for that measure of the future of
Litrachure consigned to that specific Author...or it's the selfish whining of
a fan-boy or -girl who presumes to misunderstand that the Author gives what
he/she chooses and that's ALL that you, or he/she, gets.  Nothing more, not
one jot, tittle, or snippet.

I am determined that--in the event anyone gives a damn about me or my work
after I've gone down the hole--that there will be no publication of, say,
BLOOD'S A ROVER by Harlan Ellison and Frederik Pohl, or Harlan Ellison and
Robert Silverberg, or Harlan Ellison and David Drake...or whoever that
season's "completer" might be.  

They've dredged up the rotting literary bones of virtually everyone from
Charles Dickens ("The Mystery of Edwin Drood" ) to Edgar Allan Poe ("The
Lighthouse") to Margaret Mitchell and Michael Shaara (and no, I allow no
slack just because Mike's son has done the "prequel" to THE KILLER
ANGELS)...and I understand that they've now found the
three-quarters-completed manuscript of a sequel to A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ
which was in progress when Walter M. Miller, Jr. died...and someone is
"completing" it.  

Now, I suppose someone who enjoys reading, who loves Miller's work, or Robert
E . Howard's work, or even--on a warm day--Harlan Ellison's work, presumes to
believe s/he is justified in assuaging his/her selfish need to have a moment
more's enjoyment by championing the "right" of some parvenu ghoul of a
literary grave-robber to misappropriate the efforts of a dead man or woman,
for the self-gratification of a faceless, nameless audience.  I tell you this
from the heart: whoever it might be stoking that position on Usenet...you are
wrong.  You are smartass, and insolent, and offensive; you are wrongheaded,
and lack even the vaguest understanding of the proprietary and primary
interest of literary creations by the Author; you are selfish, and mingy, and
have the soul of either a ribbon clerk, or a poltroon.  You ought to be a
high school corrections officer, or some narrow-eyed public official who
spends all day stamping DENIED on applications for something-or-other.  You
are just simply, finally, full of rhino-turds, and I urge you to shut the
f--- up and NEVER EVER AGAIN venture a moronic opinion such as this, in
public or in private, lest a Real Writer overhear, and pound you into
flinders.

I trust I have made myself abundantly clear on this subject.  Let us move on.
            
yr. pal, Harlan