...I think my meaning is clear, and I will, as I believe you know, live up to it. Let me add this: If the going gets tough and the business office tells you to cut rates, I will go back to a cent and a quarter a word without murmur, provided it is the highest rate you pay anyone. As long as you pay anyone a cent and a half, I want it. If my stuff starts slipping and is no longer worth top rates, I prefer to quit rather than start the downgrade. Same thing I had to say once before with respect to rejections-I don't like 'em and will quit the racket when they start coming in. I know this can't go on forever but, so help me, having reached top, in one sense, I'll retire gracefully rather than slide downhill.
September 6, 1941: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
From your last two letters I am forced to conclude that you and I are talking somewhat at cross-purposes-you are apparently under the impression that I am still writing. To be sure, I did not drop you a card saying, "I retired today." I could not-under the circumstances it would have seemed like a childish piece of petulance. Nevertheless, I knew that I would retire and exactly when and why, and I sent a letter to you a number of months back in which I set forth my intention and my reasons. Surely you recall it? I know you received it, for you commented on it. The gist of the matter was that I intended to continue to make the writing of science fiction my principal occupation until I received a rejection slip, whereupon I would retire. I told you about it ahead of time so that you would know it was not pique, but a thought-out plan, which motivated me.
You will remember that in 1940 I was already looking forward to retiring in a few months. Well, the time came when I should have retired, but I couldn't-I couldn't afford to; you were buying everything I wrote at nice fat rates. A day's work paid me at least thirty dollars and usually more. I couldn't enjoy loafing; if I stayed away from the mill it had to be for some reason I could justify to my residual puritan bias. So I took myself to one side and said, "Look here, Robert, this has got to stop. You haven't any need for more money; the possession of more money simply leads you into expensive tastes which in no way increase your happiness. In the meantime you are getting fat, shortwinded, and soft, and ruining your digestion to boot." To which Robert replied, "Yeah, boss, I know. But look-it's the money machine. Just punch it, and the dollars fall out. Money, money, money, money!" So I had to speak to him sternly, "Money! Sure, money is nice stuff, but you don't need much of it. We settled that when we entered the navy, and we proved it the time you got stung buying that silver mine." To which he answered, "Yeah, but look-you could buy the GE Home Workshop. You could put it right over there-and it costs only $110." "Another gadget! You know what I think of gadgets. When would you use it, anyhow?" "Don't give me that stuff! You know you like gadgets." "Well, within moderation, but the lust for them is a vice." "It is, eh? You've got it pretty bad then." "I have not," I answered with dignity. "I can take them or leave them alone. Besides, I would rather make them than buy them." The argument went on and on. He pointed out to me that money did not have to be spent; it could be loaned or given away. (We were both agreed that it should never be saved, except for specific short-term purposes.) I said, "When did you ever give or loan money that the deal didn't turn sour?" He mentioned a couple of times, and I was forced to admit he was right; " -- besides, we could be more careful about it," he added hopefully.
The upshot of the matter was a compromise. I agreed to let him continue to punch the alphabetical slot machine just as long as he hit the jackpot every time; the first time he failed to get his nickel back we would quit.
So-at long last came the envelope I had been looking for, a rejection instead of a check [for "Creation Took Eight Days," later published as "Goldfish Bowl"]. I had a quick pang of regret over the money I didn't get, which was washed away by the pleasant knowledge that school was out at last. I spent the whole day taking pictures. I spent the next day starting the excavation for a swimming pool, a project which I have had in mind for five years, which I have been ready to commence for some months, but which takes time, lots of it. I could hire it done by staying at the typewriter, but that was not the idea-I wanted the heavy physical exercise [that] a pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow provide.
Besides that, I have had a number of typewriter projects in mind which have been indefinitely postponed because I was busy with S-F. In particular a short book on monetary theory which should have been written eighteen months ago. That is a "must" and will probably be finished this winter. I expect it to be published but I probably won't make any money out of it. Besides that, I have been urged to tackle a primer of semantics and general semantics. I am moderately well prepared for the task, having had five seminars in the subject; nevertheless there is a lot of research to be done and a monumental task of devising lucid pedagogical methods in a most difficult field, involving as it does a very nearly complete reorientation in methods of thinking even for the "educated" reader. I estimate that it may take from two to five years to complete. Incidentally, if you are interested, I would be willing to do a popular article or two on the subject for Astounding. I offered to do so once before, you may recall, but you made no answer.
Besides the above, I am going to try to do at least one novel for book publication and will probably try a flyer in slicks, most likely through Virginia Perdue's agent. I haven't had much luck with agents up to now, and it seems to be agreed that a good agent is almost a sine qua non for such endeavor.
The above plans, although numerous and involved, are leisurely in their nature-which is what I have been wanting. I want to be able to stop, sit down, and "invite my soul" for an hour, a day, or a week, if I feel the need for it. I don't know yet what my principal task in this world is, if I have one, but I do know that I won't find it through too much hurrying and striving...
...I have gone on, wordily, because it is important to me that you should understand my motives-I want your approval. Let me pose a rhetorical question: What incentive is there for me to remain a full-time writer of science fiction? At the present time I am the most popular writer for the most popular magazine in the field and command (I believe) the highest word rate. Where is there for me to go but down? I can't go up in this field; there is no place to go...Frankly, the strain is wearing on me. I can still write, but it is a terrific grind to try each week to be more clever than I was the week before. And if I do, to what purpose. First is the highest I can stand; a cent and a half a word is the most I can hope to be paid.
I will not attempt to pep up my stories by introducing a greater degree of action-adventure. It is not my style.
It seems to me that the popularity of my stuff has been based largely on the fact that I have continually enlarged the field of S-F and changed it from gadget motivation to stories more subtle in their themes and more realistically motivated in terms of human psychology. In particular I introduced the regular use of high tragedy and completely abandoned the hero-and-villain formula. My last story, the one you bounced ["Goldfish Bowl"], does not represent a change in the sort of thing I have been doing, but a logical and (for my taste) artistic extension of the theme. I don't blame you for bouncing it; if you did not see the point of the story, you have no reason to think that your customers would. Nevertheless, the story had a point, a most important point, a most powerful and tragic one. Apparently I expressed the point too subtly, but you and I have rather widely divergent views about the degree of subtlety a story can stand. For my money you have damaged a great many excellent stories you have printed by telegraphing the point of the story on the contents page, in the blurb under the title, and in the subtitles under the illustrations. And you damn near ruined "Requiem" by adding four lines to the end which led the reader up a blind alley, clear away from the real point of the story.