Grumbles From the Grave

CHAPTER V

* '; THE BEST LAID PLANS

PUBLIC SPEAKING

August 15, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

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 Blassingame

...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 {Saturday 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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame 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 chores 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 reassigned 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 classes 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 Blassingame

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 association with you, everything I have written has been turned out under difficult circumstances, most of them under most excruciatingly difficult circumstances. 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 Blassingame

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 space 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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame

...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 chores and correspondence and intend to start revising tomorrow. The finished manuscript should be in your hands within a fortnight.

October 1, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame

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 chores 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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame

I have spent the past month on (a) flu, (b) reading several hundred pounds of accumulated 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 space 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 Blassingame

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 Blassingame

...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 title: 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 Japan, 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 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.

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 Blassingame

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 damned 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 Blassingame

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 accumulated 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.