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 title: 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-title page, the entire title being for the full-title 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 title, 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 title 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 title-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 classes, nor in any book on how to write that I have ever seen.
I intend to lace it with illustrative 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 Sex 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 prostitution...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 buttonholed 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 passed 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 pass, and those books Robert was so hot to do were never written.
Robert never did tell me just what the crisis with Japan was, when his ship steamed full speed toward the Orient.
SLUMP
March 31, 1959: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Blassingame
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 Blassingame
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 assume that they can be sold somewhere to some medium.
MOTION PICTURE CONTRACT
November 8, 1968: Robert A. Heiniein to Lurton Blassingame
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 Blassingame
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.