March 6, 1950: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
Boys' Life found suspense problem. Scribner's very pleased with book.
April 24, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am glad to hear that [Boys' Life editor] Crump is taking the serial [published in Boy's Life as "Satellite Scout"], since I need every cent I can scrape up for [house] building. Nevertheless, I would turn down his bid of $750 if I could afford to. It occurs to me, however, that, if he had me in a squeeze before, I have him in a squeeze now. He has scheduled it for the August issue; the makeup date must be staring him in the face, particularly as he is ordering a color painting for the cover from [Chesley] Bonestell.
And please be sure to tell him that I am certainly entitled to as much time to make up my mind whether or not I like his offer as he is to make up his mind whether or not he likes a story that he ordered from me in the first place. And tell him that I am proud, mean, stiff-necked, and that you doubt very much if you can get me to accept a lowered word rate, since I have been known in the past to pass up sales rather than take a cut.
Don't quite let the sale get away from you-but if you can get him on the hook and keep him there, we may be able to squeeze a couple of hundred dollars' worth of blood out of this stone. I don't care whether he gets sore or not; this is my swan song with Crump; sales to him are not worth the trouble and worry.
Don't get yourself in bad with him; blame it all on me.
Even if you have cashed the check already, I hope you will call him up and twist his arm a bit.
April 21, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
...The transformation from Farmer in the Sky to "Satellite Scout" [the Boys' Life version] took five drafts and consumed most of six weeks...whereupon I was left in suspense while [Crump] made up his mind whether or not he liked my condensation.
BETWEEN PLANETS
January 18, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am 14,000 words into the new boys' book [Between Planets] and the villains are way ahead. The first part always goes slowly; I have to get acquainted with the characters.
March 15, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I've just answered a nite letter from Miss Dalgliesh asking for a synopsis of Between Planets (formerly The Rolling Stones). [The Rolling Stones was a working title, later used for another book.] She wants the finished manuscript by the first-I can't make it, by at least a week, but I am pushing night and day.
March 17, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Between Planets is rolling nicely; I expect to finish it by a week from today, or even sooner. However, the necessity of smooth-typing it will keep me from sending it on earlier than about the first week in April. I have told Miss Dalgliesh.
April 1, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Herewith two copies of Between Planets. In this same mail I have sent Miss Dalgliesh an airmail postcard telling her that the ms. will arrive in New York at the same time she receives the card (or should). Since they are so anxious to have it at the earliest possible date, will you please send the original over to her at once?
May 31, 1951: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
Word from Blue Book taking Between Planets, paying $1,000.
Scribner will publish about 1 November, allowing Blue Book to schedule story for September or October issue.
June 3, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Good news indeed about the sale of Between Planets to Blue Book. Please tell Kennicott [Donald Kennicott, editor of Blue Book, who knew nothing of science fiction except H. G. Wells's title] that there is no resemblance at all between Wells's War of the Worlds and my Between Planets-also that he should read Wells's book; it's a dilly. The move-overs should resemble in appearance the mythological fauns or satyrs, the "goat-men," but should avoid too close a resemblance, i.e., avoid terrestrial musculature, articulation, and physiognomy, both of goats and men. Faunus veneris is a biped, horned, and smaller than a man, but its appearance merely suggests the faun of Greek mythology. It is not actually related to any earth-ian life form; there is plenty of elbow room for the artist to use his imagination.
June 28,1951: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein (telegram) Scribner's proofs on their way airmail special delivery.
THE ROLLING STONES
December 1, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
The boys' novel Rolling Stones is about a quarter finished, smooth draft-and an unsatisfactory story line thereafter. The trouble is that I am trying to do domestic comedy this time with nothing much in the way of revolutions and blood-and I find comedy harder to write. Oh, I can keep up wisecracking dialog all too easily, but the characters have to do something too, something important. With space warfare and intrigue ruled out by the nature of the story I find that a problem. Story centers around twin boys and their eccentric family. Family goes to asteroids in family spaceship, get into various sorts of trouble, get out again.
January 5, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
The new boys' novel, The Rolling Stones, is rolling along. I am hard at work seven days a week.
January 15, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I heard from Miss Dalgliesh about Rolling Stones; she is enthusiastic.
March 8, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am sorry to say that I am again having "sex" trouble with Miss Dalgliesh-she has decided (from her Olympian heights as an amateur Freudian) that The Rolling Stones contains some really dangerously evil connotations. Her letter was rather horrid and I was quite offended. I am not asking you to front for me this time; I answered her myself. Since the business matters are all completed, it is strictly an author-editor matter and you have troubles enough without being put in the middle on this. But enough is enough and I do not intend to tolerate any more of this sort of thing. The Rolling Stones may be the last juvenile I will do, or, if I do another, perhaps we will offer it to -- rather than to Miss Dalgliesh.
I consciously intend to write wholesome stories for boys and mean to leave out entirely the sophisticated matters which appear in my writings for adults. In addition, Mrs. Heinlein went over this one most carefully, trying to find things Miss Dalgliesh might object to. When we were both satisfied that it was as pure as Caesar's wife, we sent it off. I feel sure that you would have returned it to me for revision had you seen anything in it which could have been construed as dirty. So she liked it and signed a contract for it-and now decides that it is dirty. The anecdote about the Vermonter who made a pet of a cow, " -- same as you might a good hunting dog -- " Miss Dalgliesh says suggests "certain abnormal sex practices." Well, it doesn't suggest anything to me except that my wife has made a pet out of a horse next door, which was what it was based on-and I am dead certain it won't suggest anything horrid to my boys and girls. But I gave her a revision-because we decided that the anecdote was not dirty but was dull.
Her other objection was this: "Flat cats seem to me a trifle too Freudian in their pulsing love habits." Since I intentionally desexed them entirely, even to parthenogenesis, I found this a bit thick. I always called a flat cat "it" rather than "he" or "she" and gave the only named one a name with no sex connotation. These things I did because I knew she was hipped on the subject-but it was useless; she is capable of seeing phallic symbolism in Jack's beanstalk.
Another objection she made has nothing to do with sex, but I find it illustrative of how far afield she has gone to find trouble: she objected to my naming a prospector "Old Charlie" because the first name of Mr. Scribner is Charlesl How silly can one get?