PUBLIC SPEAKING.
August 15, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I have given both these bids considerable thought. As you know, I do not like speaking dates, but on the other hand, I realize that I must accept some of them, especially those from librarians. This time the matter is further complicated by the fact that both bids come via Scribner"s (not my current publisher) and, while one group offers to pick up the tab, the other group asks Scribner"s to do so-and Scribner"s has agreed to do so.
I do not want Scribner"s to pick up the tab. After long thought I have concluded that I do not want any publisher ever to pick up the tab when I make a trip to speak; I would much rather see a publisher spend money to advertise and distribute my books than to have promotion money spent on airfares and hotel bills for the author.
So I have finally arrived at this policy, which I now present to you for comment and (I hope) approval. From here on I will continue to avoid speaking dates when possible except speaking dates involving librarians. With respect to their bids, I will accept them if possible in such cases and only such cases as the group which wishes to have me appear wants me badly enough to pay my travel and hotel expenses plus a nominal fee of, let us say, fifty dollars.
WRITING PLANS.
November 19, 1945: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... My particular talent is for the prophetic novel, i.e., the novel laid in the future, perhaps only a few years in the future but nevertheless in the future. I have no objection to doing contemporary fiction and am open to advice, but there is this one thing which I do especially well. There is a book market for it and at least a limited slick market for it. I believe that the slick market for it will be much greater than before the war, primarily because of atomics. I think people will want to be told what to expect in the coming atomic age. I have notes for many, many stories; do you want to discuss stories with me ahead of time, or shall I just go ahead and write?
I also write fantasy and would like to emulate Stephen Vincent Benet. The SEP {Sat.u.r.day Evening Post] has been publishing quite a lot of fantasy since --- took over; I would like to do the sort of thing they publish.
January 1, 1946: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I am quite used to being considered too spectacular. My own brother, a colonel of engineers, thought my prewar stories about the atomic bomb and atomic weapons to be sheer moonshine; he has since flown over Hiroshima and changed his mind.
April 20, 1947: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I am starting a short, Luna City series, slanted for Post, tomorrow. Like the hired man said, "We"ve had a lot of trouble around here," but you may expect regular copy for some time hence.
June 24, 1947: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame To confirm my telegram of Tuesday, my new address is: Suite 210, 7904 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood 46, Cal.
Letters or telegrams sent there will reach me promptly. My telephone has been disconnected. We have closed our house and in a few days-as soon as I can get some ch.o.r.es cleaned up-I am going to light out for the desert and get back to work. Leslyn [Heinlein"s first wife] is going to stay in town. . . .
EDITOR"S NOTE While Robert was working at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia, I was rea.s.signed to duty there by the Navy. At that time, I was a lieutenant (j.g.) in the WAVES. We worked together on some projects, chiefly on attachment ofPlexiglas canopies. Both of us had other, separate projects. When World War II ended, Robert resigned his position as an engineer to return home to Los Angeles with his wife. As I had not accrued many points in the system that governed release from the service, I was required to remain on duty until March 1946. I had already decided to return to college for an advanced degree, and made arrangements for that. Robert suggested that I go to UCLA rather than Berkeley, as I had planned.
While the GI Bill paid for tuition and books, the stipend allowed was rather scanty, so I needed to work part-time, attending cla.s.ses and studying in what free time I had. So my social life lapsed almost entirely. What I did retain was devoted to the symphony and figure skating. I saw very little of Robert and his wife, Leslyn, although we lived not too far apart.
When finals were finished in 1947, I had a call from Robert-he asked my help in clearing his papers from his house. He was getting a divorce.
I took the summer off from my studies to work-my finances were in poor shape. Robert spent that summer in Ojai, writing.
We were married in October 1948.
1948: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I"m back to work. The honeymoon is over, except for weekends. I hope, Lurton, to turn over to you more and better copy than you have seen yet. During my entire a.s.sociation with you, everything I have written has been turned out under difficult circ.u.mstances, most of them under most excruciatingly diffi- cult circ.u.mstances. I have had to force myself to work, with the major portion of my mind and attention centered on the things that were happening around me and to me. I am not seeking sympathy, but I do want you to know that there is at least a fair chance that I will give you better material and more of it from now on.
November 6, 1948: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame It isn"t necessary to get Ginny to chain me to my typewriter four hours a day. I am frantically anxious to spend more hours than that at work every day. If I am spared more domestic upheavals for the next several months I should turn out a lot of copy. Right now I am racking my brain trying to cook up another subject for a boys" novel for Scribner"s. I am not going to be able to go to Florida this winter to complete the diving and research I must do before I write Ocean Rancher. Therefore I have got to find another story for ---. It would be easy enough to cook up another s.p.a.ce opera, but I shall do my darnedest to find something else to write about before falling back on that.
November 18, 1948: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Your remark that you were sure that I would do an (adult) novel within the next twelve months has caused me considerable thought. Do you really think so? I have long wanted to do bookbound adult novels, preferably of the H. G. Wells sort, but have never tackled anything but pulp serials and these boys" books for Scribner"s. Do you think I should take time off... and make a real try at cracking the adult book market? If so, should I drop the speculative stuff and try a contemporary novel-or should I stick to my specialty?
January 28, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... In the meantime, I am collecting notes on (Forgive me!) the Great American Novel. Yup, Lurton, I have fallen ill of the desire to turn out a "literary" job. Specifically, I would like to do a job somewhat like Ayn Rand did in The Fountainhead, but with modern art, especially pictorial art, as my target. It may be a year or two before I feel ready to tackle it, but I am working on it.
The first draft of the boys" novel [Red Planet] for Scribner"s was finished at 11 P.M. last Monday. I have taken three days off to attend to ch.o.r.es and correspondence and intend to start revising tomorrow. The finished ma.n.u.script should be in your hands within a fortnight.
October 1, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I have two short stories that I am very hot to do, one a bobby-sox for Calling All Girls and one a sci-fi short which will probably sell to slick and is a sure sale for pulp. The first is "Mother and the Balanced Diet," using the same characters as [in] "Poor Daddy," as the editors requested. The other is "The Year of the Jackpot" based on cycles theory-1952, the year that everything happens at once. But gosh knows when I will find time to do them. I probably will, as I want to do them. But I"m working myself nutty. (Oh, yes-I"ve got to prepare some stuff for --- too; possible [motion picture] uses for my published stuff.) About the Boys" Life job, see above. You"ll get both versions in about a month. We have to move this week; I"ll send you a new address.
HOLLYWOOD WRITING.
September 3, 1957: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I want to hold up for a little while in changing Hollywood agents. I still think that MCA is not the place for me to get personal attention but a recent incident makes it polite, at least, to delay: at 1200 26 August, Hal Flanders of Ned Brown"s office phoned me and offered me a Hollywood writing job doing a screen treatment of Herman Wouk"s The Lo-mokome Papers. I turned down the job-I don"t really want to write screen stories of anyone"s work but my own, and this particular story cannot be repaired into an honest science fiction story anyhow; it is a philosophical tract packaged as a fantasy. Furthermore, I hope my decision will not disappoint you when I point out that the source of the work is such that we could hardly expect MCA to split the fee-and I prefer to stay under your management and writing for the New York market rather than become a Hollywood trained seal. In any case, I could not finish the novel, do this job, and sail on 26 November. But I did find the offer pleasing. . . .
November 16, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame There will be a veritable spate of new Heinlein stories before this winter is over. Our bomb shelter is completed and stocked-and the durn thing was enormously more expensive than I had figured on when I started it. Now I have a couple of weeks of ch.o.r.es to clean up, including a big backlog of correspondence, filing, record keeping, etc.; then I shall apply the nose to this grindstone and keep it there all winter.
August 10, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame This fall I might do about 10,000 words for Boys" Life (query them if you like), or write the last story of the Future History [see The Past Through Tomorrow in Chapter XI, "Adult Novels"], Da Capo (piles of notes on it but it has never quite jelled)-or possibly a new novel. Or perhaps all three in the order named. But that is a good many weeks away.
Re Scribner"s: We might offer --- something someday-but only if Putnam"s turns down a book.
April 17, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I have spent the past month on (a) flu, (b) reading several hundred pounds of acc.u.mulated magazines and technical reports, and (c) correspondence. The latter two are things I am endlessly behind on, always. There is no solution to the problem of trying to keep up with the ever-expanding frontier of science and technology, plus the world in general; I simply do the best I can, falling further behind each year, especially in electronics, biochemistry, and s.p.a.ce travel technology. But I have made, implemented, and am keeping a good resolution concerning correspondence: I now answer almost all letters simply with postcards-a letter has to be really important to me to cause me to answer it by a real letter. The saving in time is very marked.
I will probably not write another story or book until after I learn whether or not I will have to go back to Hollywood this summer. And there is endless maintenance work to be done around this place. Today I got back to pick and shovel for the first time: cleaning some tons of silt out of my middle irrigation pool ... silt from a flood clear back in September or earlier. Monday I expect to start on concrete work, repairing the lowest dam, if the weather holds. This has been a cold, very late spring. Ginny has just started on her garden work; it has been too cold up to now. There is still some snow on the mountain above us and it snowed down here only eight days ago.
June 23, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I am very anxious to get back to writing, including new copy for the proposed boy scout book-and I"ve just had a very pleasant, long letter from --- telling me that -- has again raised their rates . . . and that he would expect to pay me a still higher bonus rate if I"ll ever come through with copy. But, Lurton, I"ve never worked any harder in my life than right now and it is utterly-impossible for me to turn out fiction until I get this [Santa Cruz] house finished. Every time I turn my back something goes wrong. The cabinet and finish work is slowly (and very expensively) being finished. After that we still have the floors, ceilings, and fireplaces to do, plus the driveway, the front steps, and some exterior painting. It feels like an endless nightmare and the costs are utterly unbelievable. But there is no way to stop-short of being forced to stop by running out of money. Which is possible, despite the way you have been digging gold for us. Sorry-I"m simply very tired tonight, up to midnight last night on the drawing board, on it again today under pressure so that the cabinetmakers could take a bunch of detail drawings home over the weekend . . . and now writing this under pressure so as not to miss the next mail dispatch. But we are getting a beautiful house just the way Ginny wants it.
September 16, 1973: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... In the meantime, I am hotter than a $2 pistol on three books. One is fiction and will be a long time in writing, as I must do much research on the history and culture and manners of speech of several periods I do not as yet know enough about. It will be an episodic time-travel fantasy (with a new gimmick for time travel), each episode independent and available for sale as a short story as it is written, but the whole thing linked together by an overall plot which will make it a novel of book length-somewhat the way [Paul] Gallico"s "Adventures of Hiram Holiday" make one book-but nothing at all like Gallico"s fine job save in its episodic structure. (I am going to reread his in order to stay as far away from his ideas as possible in all ways.) I have several episodes well worked out but each needs careful research-probably after a draft on each, then a final form after research; this will take lots of work. (I may turn out a juvenile sci fi adventure of the sort I used to do long before this episodic fantasy is completed.) The second book is a memoirs-autobiography job to be published posthumously-and left uncopyrighted till then (hence of zero cash value in probate)-as a little bonus to Ginny for all the years she has put up with my cantankerous ways. If published about a year after my death it should bring her some return . . . if I am still writing and my works are still known at the time of my death. If I get it in fair shape, you may possibly see a draft of it later-depends on events. I have been gathering notes for such a book for many years and have recently started shaping them up ... especially since 1969, which caused me to realize that I didn"t have forever if it were to be a vendable property. Working t.i.tle: Grumbles from the Grave by Robert A. Heinlein (deceased). (It"s amazing how frank and how acidly funny one can be when one is certain it will never see print until the writer is safely out of reach. I"ll name names-then Ginny will have to edit it with the advice of a good lawyer to insure that she is safe, too-then no doubt the publisher"s lawyers will want some names deleted or changed, too. But I am going to write it as if with a Ouija board. It will be easy to write-lots of notes, lots of pack-rat-saved souvenirs, more than fifty years of letters, many things I have never discussed-e.g., the frontline seat I had in the crisis many years back with j.a.pan, before World War II-a crisis involving a war ultimatum that never got into the news . . . plus a Secret Life of (Walter Mitty) Heinlein, etc. I"m working on it.
But the third book will be written and finished for publication as soon as I am free of taking care of Ginny through this long, long siege of oral surgery. I have it in shape to start writing this very minute but will have many, many more card notes by that time-shortly after the first of the yegr. Working t.i.tle: Writing for a Living (and Haw to Live Through It)-Being the Ungarnished Facts about the Writing Racket for People Too Lazy to Dig Ditches. The first part- Writing for a Living-is for the cover and the half-t.i.tle page, the entire t.i.tle being for the full-t.i.tle page-although the book jacket might read Writing for a Living in large letters, plus The Ungarnished Facts in much smaller letters, plus my name in quite large letters- same size as the short t.i.tle, or even larger, if publisher"s judgment in dust jackets of my last several books is a guide. Besides that, for use on the inner flap and on the back of the dust jacket, and as t.i.tle of the preface Ginny has suggested and is preparing a Latin fake quotation: "De Natura Scribendi etc.," a free translation being "Concerning the Nature of the Writing Business and How Not to Get Screwed in It." Ginny"s command of Latin grammar is good and she knows many Latin bawdy idioms . . . but she will write it, then enlist the help of a professor of Latin here at the campus to insure perfect grammar and exact idiom-and a choice of words as nearly self-translating as possible by selection of proper cognates of English. I"m [I"ll] probably attribute it to Juvenal or Ovid, as interpreted by Lazarus Long.
(It could have a How to Write for Money t.i.tle-but I think that "How to-" has been overworked of late years.) A somewhat-laundered translation could be used in the dust jacket blurb (and possibly an exact translation supplied to reviewers), but the Latin itself must be idiomatically perfect. In truth it will be a most practical guide for inexperienced aspirants who are wild to do the- comparatively mild-and rather fun work that writing entails. I am going to make it extremely practical-more practical than Jack Woodford"s How to Write and Sell (his only good book, his only bestseller, and the basis for 90% + of his reputation)-but I intend to make it lively, hard to put down as a good novel by any of the millions of aspirant-writers-who-never-will-actually-write, plus the thousands who do write and could make a living at it if they knew certain rules of the game-rules that are not taught in so-called creative writing cla.s.ses, nor in any book on how to write that I have ever seen.
I intend to lace it with ill.u.s.trative true anecdotes, changing names and dates and places only when necessary to avoid being sued-and will say so. It will have many a chuckle in it, plus a few belly laughs. I know I can do, it. This will be a timeless book and should make money for many years. It just might be a smash hit, like Helen Gurley"s s.e.x and the Single Girl-as everyone wants to know how to make money with least effort and almost as many have at least a secret hope of seeing their names in print as " "Authors" "-much like the great curiosity that most respectable women have about prost.i.tution . . . and a secret wonder as to whether or not they could have made the grade in the Oldest Profession-only of course they never actually would, perish the thought! Almost as many feel that way about the Second Oldest Profession, the Teller of Tales^I know, from endless direct experience, that a person who actually writes for a living . . . and clearly does well financially at it ... is an object of curiosity to many-an exotic creature, not quite respectable, but very interesting. I"m b.u.t.tonholed about it every time I appear in public-which used to be fun but has grown to be a nuisance. So I might as well turn this nuisance into cash.
EDITOR "s NOTE: None of the three books outlined here were ever written; some notes were collected, but nothing ever went on paper.
Lurton telephoned one day, saying that Robert had been asked to give one of the Forrestal Lectures at the Naval Academy. Normally, Lurton would have regretted the invitation, but this was from Robert"s alma mater. So it was accepted, and many months went into preparation for the talk.
Then along came a request from the Britannica editors for Robert to do an article on Paul Dirac and antimatter for the Compton Yearbook. Robert viewed that as an opportunity to review the entire field of modern physics, and sciences in general. So, doing that article took one year. And it was followed by a request for another article on blood-another year consumed in the study of biological sciences, with one article to show for that year"s work.
Then came the invitation to be Guest of Honor at MidAmeriCon, which took up most of the year of 1976, what with all the arrangements to be made.
The year 1977 was pa.s.sed in getting blood drives going among science fiction fans-and I must heartily recommend them for their cooperation in this project. Donors still send me copies of their ten-gallon certificates . . .
Thus did time pa.s.s, and those books Robert was so hot to do were never written.
Robert never did tell me just what the crisis with j.a.pan was, when his ship steamed full speed toward the Orient.
SLUMP.
March 31, 1959: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Bla.s.singame If the market is in this bad shape, I had better do one of two things; either quit writing for the pulp SF magazines and concentrate on television and possible slick sales, or simply retire and do what I want to do with my time. I could retire very easily now, and Ginny and I could live very comfortably, simply by dispensing with foreign travel, emeralds, and similar unnecessary luxuries-and I certainly do not fancy knocking myself out, breeding insomnia, etc., for the privilege of receiving word rates that are actually less, after taxes, than those I got twenty years ago-and are effectively less than half that when I spend the money. It doesn"t make sense.
July 28, 1959: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I am returning your clipping about the sad state of fiction. It is enough to drive a man back to engineering. However, I have always worked on the theory that there is always a market somewhere for a good story-a notion that Will Jenkins [the real name of science-fiction writer Murray Leinster] pounded into my head many years ago. When I started writing there were lots of pulp magazines, many slick fiction magazines-no pocketbooks and no television. I think I"ll just go on writing stories that I would like to read and a.s.sume that they can be sold somewhere to some medium.
MOTION PICTURE CONTRACT.
November 8, 1968: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Bla.s.singame We have just finished a hard three days with the literary appraiser-hard but very pleasant; he turns out to be muy simpatico. Today I am trying to turn my notes into a long letter to Ned [Brown] re the Glory Road [fantasy novel, see Chapter XI, "Adult Novels"] contract. Darn it, I opened that contract determined to sign it unchanged if at all possible to live with it. Ginny says they let a second cousin write this contract when they should have used at least a first cousin.
TELEVISION SERIES.
October 12, 1963: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Ned told me by phone that the contract is all set for the TV series and for me to do the pilot film shooting script. He gave me a lot of details, none of which I wrote down, as I don"t believe a durn thing out of Hollywood until I see a signed contract and a check . . . Ned seems to have gotten from them simply everything he asked for ... I simply told him to go ahead and get the best deal he could and I would sign it as long as it did not commit me to work in Hollywood.
But Ned said that I really must come out to Hollywood for at least one day"s conference with Dozier, the boss. This I flatly refused to do until I have a signed contract in hand. I was not just being stubborn.
EDITOR"S NOTE: Robert was quite accustomed to receiving telephone calls from Hollywood producers; they would want him to do a script. Each time, the suggestion would be made, "Why don"t you hop on a plane and come out here and discuss it?"
So, when in 1963, Robert received a telephone call from a Hollywood producer, Howie Horwitz, Robert was ready with an answer. Howie wanted Robert to do a pilot script for a science fiction TV series for Screen Gems. Then came the inevitable line: "Why don"t you hop a plane and come out and discuss it?"
Robert replied, "Why don"t you hop a plane to Colorado and we can discuss it here ?""
To our amazement, Howie did just that.
Robert had sworn a mighty oath not to get involved in such an enterprise again. But Howie"s presence disarmed him. Robert set to work after Howie left and produced a script. Then he found that trying to work between Colorado and Hollywood just wasn "t possible. So in early 1964 we went out there for Robert to do rewrites under Howie"s direction.
When the work was finished, we returned home. It was at just this point that the bankers went out to Hollywood from New York, and fired Howie and his boss. The script was shelved at Screen Gems, and Howie and his boss went across the street, and produced "Batman. "
For all practical purposes, the pilot script was dead, along with the series, "Century XXII. " There is a faint hope that it may be produced someday. As this is being written, someone recalled the script and is setting about the difficult task of undertaking to produce the film.
January 20, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Will you get me off the hook on several things? There has been a death in my family-no close emotional involvement for me, but some duty matters-so I am unexpectedly catching a plane in about an hour (Ginny remains here), then on my return Thursday will be leaving immediately to drive to Hollywood (Ginny accompanying me) and arriving there possibly late for Screen Gems story conference Monday 27 January. . . . The [TV] thing is sourer than ever and I see no hopes of saving it, but I must go out and try my best.
But today I "m badly strapped for time and ask help on some unfinished business (this d.a.m.ned screenplay has put me behind on everything)-and this funeral puts the topper on it-despite the fact that I answered sixty-three letters in the last three days, trying to catch up.
April 8, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I have many other things to acknowledge. We have been home three weeks now, two of them eaten by illness, the rest of the time used futilely in attempting to cope with an avalanche of acc.u.mulated low-priority paperwork, several hundred periodicals, etc., piled up not only while we were away, but left undone clear back from last August when (TV producer) first entered my life. This last Hollywood experience has simply confirmed my earlier opinion that, while Hollywood rates are high, what a writer goes through to earn those rates makes it a losing game in the long run. I hope that you and I and Ned [Brown] make some money out of this-but if the series is never produced, I hope to have sense enough to stay home and write books in the future and leave the movie never-never land to those who enjoy that rat race.
CHAPTER VI.
ABOUT WRITING METHODS AND CUTTING.
October 25,1946: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame . . . then write another short. This one is tentatively t.i.tled "Homesickness" ["It"s Great to Be Back"] and is another Luna City and so forth yarn. If possible, I want to build up a background, as I did in Astounding, for a series of interplanetary shorts, laid in the near future (the coming century, to about A.D. 2050). The series will follow the formula, somewhat modified, of the SEP [Sat.u.r.day Evening Post] series such as Earthworm Tractor, Tugboat Annie, Gunsmith Pyne, Blue Chip Haggerty, etc.-stories laid against a particular occupation or industry. My series will be laid against the background of commercial (not exploration nor adventure) interplanetary travel. Continuity will be maintained by names of places-Luna City, Dry water, Venusburg, New Brisbane, New Chicago, How-Far?, Ley burg, Marsopolis, Supra-New York, etc., and by consistent use of tech- niques, cultural changes, and speech changes. Characters will shift for each story, but a major character in one story may show up in a bit part in another.
The science and engineering will be held to a minimum but will be authentic. An editor may be sure that I will respect facts of astronomy, atomics, ballistics, rocketry, etc. For example, the piloting in the story you are about to receive is as authentic as it can be at this date-if it is not as it will be, then it is at least as it could be; it is practical, with respect to time intervals, speeds, accelerations, and instruments used. When, in that story, I mention falling 700 feet on the Moon in forty seconds and thereby picking up speeds up to 140 miles per hour, and, thereafter, killing the speed with a one-second-plus blast at five-gravities, I know what I am talking about-I am a mechanical engineer, a ballistician, a student of reaction engines, and an amateur astronomer. I mention these things because they may help you sell my stuff-I won"t give an editor any Buck Rogers nonsense. A great deal of study and research goes into the background of my stories.
May 16, 1947: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... As for formal coaching from Uzzell [a well-known "story doctor" and coach of the time] or anyone, I"m getting just the coaching I want from you . . .I"m afraid of coaching, of writers" cla.s.ses, of writers" magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble-you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step. Articles and books on how to write have that effect on me. The author seems so persuasive, so sure that he knows what he is talking about, that I start having doubts about my own technique. It usually turns out that the author is urging the reader to do something quite unsuited to me-fine for him probably, but not my pidgin. If I try to imitate him, follow his directions, I usually fail to accomplish his methods and lose my own in the process . . .
I do get a great deal of help from studying other writers" stories, particularly in the respects in which I see that they have accomplished an effect that I do not as yet know how to accomplish. I find such study of what they have done more use to me than their discussions of how they do it.
Winslow says I don"t understand plotting and probably I don"t-I have been congratulated many times on the skill shown in my plotting when I knew d.a.m.n well that the story in question had not been plotted in advance at all. My notion of a story is an interesting situation in which a human being has to cope with a problem, does so, and thereby changes his personality, character, or evaluations in some measure because the coping has forced him to revise his thinking. How he copes with it I can"t plot in advance because that depends on his character, and I don"t know what his character is until I get acquainted with him. When I can "hear the character talk" then I"m all right-he works out his own salvation.
January 31, 1948: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I certainly am sorry to have worried you and will try not to let it happen again-when I get into the final chapters of a novel it is sometimes almost impossible to attract my attention.
January 2, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame My method of work is such that I always have a dozen or more stories being worked on.
March 20, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Peter Hamilton (editor of Nebula Science Fiction) The problem of building up convincing background in a science fiction story becomes extremely difficult in the shorter lengths. In ordinary fiction, background may be a.s.sumed or most briefly indicated, but it is a most unusual science fiction idea which may safely be so treated. In all the years I have been writing science fiction I have done only one story under 2,500 words, that story being "Columbus Was a Dope" . . .
October 9, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame . . . However, I have been fiddling with experimental methods of storytelling (none of which you have seen) and I am beginning to think that I may be developing a new method which might turn out to be important. It is a multiple first-person technique, but not the one used by John Masters in Bowhani Junction. Mine calls for using camera cuts and shifts as rapid as those in the movies; the idea is to give the speed of movies, the sense of immediacy of the legitimate stage, and the empathy obtained by stream of consciousness-a nice trick if I can bring it off! The greatest hitch seems to lie in the problem of shifting viewpoints, both without confusing the reader and without losing empathy through c.u.mbersome devices. But I think I am learning how to do it.
I don"t want to use this technique on commercial copy until I am sure I can force the reader to go along with a novel technique. James Joyce introduced into writing an important new technique, but he did it so clumsily that his so-called novels are virtually unreadable; if I do have^ here a usable new technique I want to polish it to the point where it can stand up in the open market in compet.i.tion with the usual wares whose values are established and recognized.
Ginny suggests that I not use it in science fiction in any case, but save it for a lit"rary novel. She has a point, I think, as it would not be seriously reviewed in an S-F novel. We"ll see.
ATTENTION.
November 8, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Sure I signed the Gollancz [a British publisher] contract; and not in invisible ink, either. Then I stuck it into file and sent you the copy I had not signed-convinced that I had signed both of them. Ginny says that whenever she finds my shoes in the icebox, she knows I"m coming down with a story.
So here is the other copy-now signed.
WORKING HABITS.
August 31, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... In the meantime, I have turned out no salable copy. Part of my trouble is that I have undertaken to do something which does not fit my working habits, i.e., agreed to produce a story outline. Outlines never have any reality to me, no vividness. Oh, I use what I call an outline but a sort that no editor would accept; it"s actually simply musing on paper-then when the idea begins to take fire, I start at once to write the story itself and become acquainted with the problem and the characters as I go along. Sometimes this results in blind alleys and surplusage which has to be removed (Door Into Summer had Martians in it for half a day, then I chucked a few pages and got back on the track)-but by the time I am well into the story I am writing with sureness, hearing the characters, seeing their surroundings, and having the same trouble coping with their problems that they have. As you can see, this is not a method [that] lends itself to a formal outline, from which I can promise to derive an acceptable story. But it is the method I have taught myself and it works for me.
Trying to force myself into the more conventional method has not worked; it has simply resulted in my snapping at my wife for a couple of months and getting no other work done either. So I am going to devote the next week to an attempt to start a story suitable for Boys" Life on spec-no outline. Probably it will work and probably they will buy it. But if I can"t click in about a week I shall have to tell them that I have nothing to offer them at this time-I shall have to cut my losses and get busy on something I can do.
September 13, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I"ve been wanting to write to you ever since I spoke with you on Sunday, but I have been busy on a draft of a novelette for Boys" Life. I finished it last night and will now try to clear my desk-starting with your letter.
I think I finally have a story that Boys" Life can use, provided I can now sweat it down to an acceptable length without bleeding it to death. The t.i.tle is "Tenderfoot on Venus" and is about a Scout and his dog and his chum in a Boy Scout troop on Venus-no s.e.x, no firearms, no fighting between the boys, knives used only for things that a Scout legitimately uses knives for, no villains oth- er than the hazards of nature. I have no real doubts about the story; while it isn"t immortal literature, it is a good, decent, adventure story. But I do want to use as much wordage as possible in the final draft because of the always present problem of building up a convincingly detailed background in a science fiction story laid in the future in a strange scene. Could you phone their editor and ask him for his absolute top word length? The more s.p.a.ce I have, the better the story will be.
Final copy should be in New York about one month from now. They can count on that.
EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES.
August 27, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I greatly sympathize with her [Peggy Bla.s.singame] emotional difficulty, being subject to it myself, although from different causes. When I am working on a book, any commitment at all other than the book itself is almost unbearable. A dinner date four days away will get between me and the typewriter and make it very hard to work. . . . very hard to keep and hold that out-of-the-world reverie that seems (for me) to be almost indispensable to empathic fiction. This neurotic peculiarity of mine is quite inconvenient to Ginny, as I am quite reluctant to take part in any social activity arranged earlier than about 5 P.M. on the day it takes place-I don"t mind socializing during a story as long as I don"t know about it ahead of time, but that limitation is very awkward for a hostess.
STORY CHANGES.
March 28, 1957: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame . . . delay on Methuselah"s Children. Both Ginny and I have been over it carefully since I last wrote. She thinks it needs a complete rewrite from beginning to end; I am certainly convinced that it should not go on the market until I have worked on it a bit and perhaps completely rewritten it. I greet this task with the delight with which I change a tire in the rain at night, but it has to be done, I am afraid. Worst of all, it uses time I had intended to put onto new copy. With luck I should forward it to you not too late in April . . .
. . . My strongest misgiving about a release through Doubleday is on other grounds, however: I am afraid that Methuselah simply does not stand up to the quality of Puppet Masters and The Door into Summer, I am afraid it would look like a slump. It was written sixteen years ago; I have learned something of story telling techniques in that time, I think.
EXCERPTS.
February 16, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame And I have another letter from --- concerning that request to use an excerpt from "Logic of Empire." This time he tells me approximately (not exactly) what he wants to excerpt but says that he cannot tell me how much I would be paid. Well, from what I know of British prices, I doubt if he contemplates paying more than ten to twenty dollars for a thousand words. But I can"t see why he expects me to sell for an unstated price. I"m tempted to tell him that short excerpts call for short-short story rates-say about a shilling a word.
But I"m going to tell him no again, (a) I don"t like to see my stories chopped up, in any case; each is meant to be read as a whole, (b) I have a dirty suspicion that he wants my name on the dust jacket at a cost of about ten bucks, (c) The controlling point: I don"t like his action in bypa.s.sing my agent. If he wanted a rehearing he should have submitted his second proposal to you-he certainly knows who you are and where you are.
d.a.m.n it, on second thought I am not going to answer him now; I"ll enclose his letter instead. If you want to answer it, do so. If not, send it back and I will do so. But I certainly do not like his unprofessional behavior in intentionally trying to bypa.s.s my agent.
INTRODUCTION.
January 14, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Robert Mills Lurton tells me that you and he have reached an agreement on the use of "Zombies" ["All You Zombies"] and that you now want an introduction to the story from me, telling why it is "one of my favorites."
At that point it suddenly lost status with me. The prospect of writing a blurb for one of my own stories I find almost as filled with grue as is attending an autographing party or writing for a fanzine. Why don"t you write it? You seemed to like this story better than I did and your blurb in FSF [The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction] was okay.