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...