Grumbles From the Grave

by Robert A. Heinlein

  (129)

  Heinlein with the newly completed Bonny Doon.

  July 10, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  This should be the last letter I'll have to write on a card table; Ginny has almost finished the bleaching and varnishing in my study. And today about half the cabinetwork arrived for her office; soon we will both be properly equipped for the first time in almost two years. Hallelujah! We'll be able at last to get our files straight and get caught up on correspondence and paperwork . . . and I am itching to reach the point where I can start in on new fiction.

  Our soil is black loam on top of sand on top of hard pan. I think we can control this driveway situation simply by treating it as a permanent watercourse, accepting that and installing a slaunchwise steel-reinforced concrete ditch alongside. But I dunno. Yesterday my brother Rex told me of a friend of his, a professional soil engineer, who has a similar driveway problem and has not been able to solve it. (But I don't think ours is that bad.)

  We stayed home on the Fourth of July and worked—did not even get to fire our cannon—can't get at it until the cabinetwork is finished and I can unpack the dining room. But we did go away to Palo Alto this weekend—heard some good music and saw a football game on television, wild excitement for the life we have been leading. In truth we had ourselves an awfully nice time and enjoyed getting away from here. (All but the cat, who thinks it is utterly unfair to cats to put him in a cage and take him to a kennel. But he needed the rest, too; he has been losing fights. I wish I could teach him to fight only smaller cats, or else Arabs—as the general with the eye patch says, it helps if you can arrange to fight Arabs.)

  We are both in good health and in quite good spirits. It is still a long haul, but we can now see daylight at the end of the tunnel.

  October 26, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . Then your check arrived and all was sunshine. That check almost exactly pays for the driveway—quite a complex and expensive structure because of underground drains for that quicksand problem— and leaves money on hand and November and December royalties for taxes, finish work inside (ceilings and recessed light fixtures), and this and that. No sweat. Utter solvency. Joy. So we declared a holiday, went downtown and bought Ginny a new dress, got hold of friends, and had dinner out, avec mucho alcohol and joviality. Today I have a mild hangover but my morale has never been better.

  October 14, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  After a delay of ca. 5,000 years I have formulated a basic natural law and named it, not for myself, but for the man who first noticed it: Cheops' Law—No building is ever finished on schedule. The guest house has been 90% finished for the past month. It is now 91% finished.

  I am working hard every day at my desk. Deus volent, I will yet get some fiction written.

  (130)

  Virginia Heinlein landscaping at Bonny Doon, late sixties.

  CHAPTER VIII

  FAN MAIL AND OTHER TIME WASTERS

  (132)

  Robert A. Heinlein with his shelf of his own fiction and awards at Bonny Doon.

  March 13, 1947: Robert A. Heinlein to Saturday Evening Post

  "Green Hills of Earth" has brought me in such a flood of mail that it has almost ruined me as a writer—I don't have time to write. None of it appears to be from crackpots; about half of it comes from technical men. All of it shows that the United States is still made up of believers and hopers, for they echo the brave words I heard last summer, while standing in the shadow of a V-2 rocket: "—anything we want to do if we want to do it badly enough."

  March 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . The rest of my time has been taken up playing scrabble (Ginny wins about 60-40: she has a better vocabulary than I have) and the endless load of correspondence. I've got about a dozen letters on hand from high school and college kids, asking me to help them on term papers—in recent years teachers all over the country have been giving kids assignments which result in me (and, I'm sure, many other writers) receiving letters accompanied by long lists of questions . . . which they want answered last Wednesday . . . and each letter, properly answered, takes a couple of hours of time. Hell, one college boy even phoned me from West Virginia, wanted to read me the questions over the phone and have me answer them airmail special—otherwise he was going to flunk his English course. This was while I was working sixteen hours a day to cut that ms. for Putnam's, so I told him to go right ahead and flunk his course because I was not going to stop work against a deadline to meet a commitment I had not assumed.

  March 9, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . I am clearing my desk of mail (pounds of fan mail and I'm tempted to burn it!—they all want quick answers, and only one in fifty encloses a stamped and addressed reply envelope)—and when I have that out of the way I will cut this new book, Grand Slam [Farnham's Freehold] or whatever we call it, and try to be free about April Fool's Day.

  February 4, 1969: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  (Speaking of the time burned up by overhead work such as that—poor Ginny! Fan mail has gotten utterly out of hand, and about a month ago, in a frantic attempt to get back to writing ms., I dumped it all on her. This morning in came about the 500th letter from still another young man who had read Stranger and wanted to discuss his soul with me. He had been "meditating" and taking courses in "sensativity" (sic). So I passed it over to Ginny, my surrogate chela in the guru business. She read it, looked tired, and said wistfully, "You know, I wish I had all the time to meditate that these kids seem to have.")

  June 4, 1969: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  What would be your opinion if I simply stopped answering mail from strangers?

  I ask because the fan mail situation has gotten out of hand. In the past five years the volume has tripled, or more. Unless I keep it answered each day, the accumulation gets out of hand and it takes me forever to catch up. Yet I cannot answer it daily—even if I were never to write another story, there are still interruptions: trips out of town, houseguests, illnesses, etc.

  This may seem trivial; it is not—unsolicited letters from strangers, fan mail plus endless requests for me to go here, speak there, donate mss., advise a beginning writer, these things add up to the major reason why I have not been able to turn out any pay copy in the period since we finished building. Secretarial help does not seem to be the answer. I can't use a full-time secretary and I have never been able to find a satisfactory moonlighter—tried again just this past month and thought I had one, an ex-Navy yeoman. Result: It cost two dollars per letter in wages with the answers to those letters limited to postcards in most cases and never longer than one sheet of the small-size notepaper, plus postage and materials—and did not save me one minute of time. In fact, it took more of my time than it would had I simply answered them myself.

  Form letters won't serve; there is simply too much variety in the incoming mail—I must either draft or dictate each answer. Either Ginny or I must write the answers. Ginny has offered to do all of it (and frequently has coped with a logjam). But I don't want Ginny to do it as it is not fair to her to tie her to a typewriter when she wants and needs to spend every possible minute on landscaping this place (and I want her to landscape—no point in having a lovely place if it is allowed to look moth-eaten). Besides, she cooks, cleans, does all the shopping, and does the not-inconsiderable record keeping and tax work and bill paying and money handling.

  So it is either do it myself—or quit answering mail from strangers.

  I have been thinking about the following expedient: A form printed on a U.S. postal card reading something like this—"Thank you for your letter, which Mr. Heinlein has read and appreciated. We have no secretary and the volume of mail makes it impossible for me to answer each letter as it deserves. If your letter requires an answer other than this acknowledgment, please send a stamped and self-addressed envelope and refer to file number . .
. In the meantime your letter will be held for thirty days in the pending file.

  "We regret having to use this expedient, but the alternative is for Mr. Heinlein to give up writing stories in favor of answering letters.

  "Sincerely,

  "Virginia Heinlein

  "(Mrs. Robert A. Heinlein)."

  The above, with the surplus words sweated out of it and printed in smaller type, would go on a postcard—and each letter could be acknowledged each day simply by cutting the address off the letter and scotch-taping it to a card. Plus using one of those automatic serial-number stampers.

  But it strikes me as an almost certain way to lose friends and antagonize people. Despite the fact that well over half the letters contain the phrase "—while I know you are a very busy man—" the truth is that each writer-reader is so important in his own eyes that he feels sure that his letter is so different, so interesting, so important, that I will happily stop whatever I am doing and answer his letter in full. When he gets one of these printed forms, his reaction will be: "Why, that snotty son of a bitch!"

  So what do you think I should do? Quit answering at all? Use this printed acknowledgment? Keep on trying to answer them all? Or some other course I haven't thought of?

  June 13, 1969: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Thank you for your long and thoughtful comments about fan mail. I am glad to have your confirmation that the printed postcard method is a bad idea; I will not use it. But I am much afraid that there is no solution to the problem short of not answering it at all.

  In the first place I am not "too conscientious" about it as I do not spend a couple of pages in answering silly questions; Ginny and I have long since cut it to the bone—the normal answer is done on a postcard. If an enclosure is required (such as a list of my books, the commonest enclosure request), we use the smallest note paper. True, I used to write careful answers to intelligent letters—but we gave that up over five years back; we had to.

  Let's assume I could get a college student to answer letters satisfactorily at a dollar a letter (I can't, but let's stipulate it for the moment). That would still cost me a couple of thousand dollars a year—which I think is too much to pay for the questionable privilege of unsolicited mail from strangers. Most of my fan mail does not go through your office; the bulk of it is forwarded from publishers directly or has been addressed to Colorado Springs and forwarded from there (as every public library in the country has that C.S. address). Plus quite a chunk that is addressed to Santa Cruz. It adds up—it usually takes about a half hour each day just to read the fan mail. I can answer it usually, faster than I can read it, if a postcard will suffice. But Ginny is the only other person who can answer it quickly, as she is the only one sophisticated enough in what to answer and what to ignore to be able to do it.

  But I do have to read it. Several times, when Ginny and I were especially busy, we have let what appeared to be fan mail pile up unread—and this is a mistake as again and again there has turned out to be one or more actual business letters buried in the fan mail simply because the external appearance (one or two forwardings, with nothing in the return address to tip me) led me to assume that it was fan mail.

  As near as I can find out from inquiries made to other colleagues, I get far more mail than any of my colleagues—for none of the others seems to find fan mail any problem. (I recall a plaint published by James Blish asking readers to please write to him—he needed feedback!)

  This morning at breakfast we were reading the mail, which included your nice letter—and Ginny sez to me: "Send this one back to L. and let him see how difficult the stuff is to answer." Well, I'm not sending it back but it was from a man and wife in New York who wanted to come out here on his vacation to talk with me. I must turn it down as man who travels a long distance to talk is affronted (reasonably? unreasonably?—either way, his feelings are hurt) if asked to leave in twenty minutes. What he asked for was an "afternoon or evening"—and what he will expect is a full day and late that night. I know, it has happened too many times. For this sort of letter is not at all uncommon; I got one from two students at Oxford University, England, earlier this spring, who wanted to come here this summer and stay an indefinite time; I got one from six students at Temple University who wanted to drive here on their Christmas vacation, camp on the beach, and see me every day. And we told you about the young man from Arizona who drove first to C.S., then here just last week. . . . sweet-talked his way past Ginny, then stayed until I chucked him out four hours later. Plus many others. So now we turn down all requests to come see us . . . but such turn-downs must be gentle.

  . . . Surely, I could load all the answering onto Ginny; she would hold still for it. But as long as we aren't missing meals I see no reason why she should give up what she wants to do for this purpose—she's carrying her full load anyhow . . .

  November 20, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Yes, sir. We will be careful with graduate students. We answer all letters except those which go into the "screwball" file, the ones from people who are more or less obviously crazy.

  Editor's Note: We went over to the use of form letters, a checkoff list. There were several different form letters. But I found myself adding handwritten P.S.'s to make them more personal, which consumed even more time. Arthur Clarke was shocked when we told him we were using form letters, but not too much later, he was using them, too.

  Editor's Note: Lurton saw little of the fan mail, but occasionally a letter arrived addressed to him. In this case, he saw some merit, more than usual, in a letter from a graduate student in English. So he counseled caution in dealing with those.

  There is no copy extant of the checkoff letters, hut when letters were answered on computers, here is how they ran:

  * * *

  An ever-increasing flood of mail has forced Mr. Heinlein to choose between writing letters and writing fiction. I have taken over for him, but he reads each letter sent to him and checks the answer.

  Four or five requests come in each week for help in class assignments, term papers, theses, or dissertations. We can't cope with so many and have quit trying.

  Sincerely,

  Virginia Heinlein

  [Mrs. Robert A. Heinlein]

  Even since Robert's death, fan mail still comes in asking me to answer questions about his work.

  TIME WASTERS

  November 3, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . In addition to the above, I've let myself be roped into going to Denver to speak to the Colorado Authors' League. I find myself in a running fight to keep my time from being nibbled away by such secondary activities. I avoid such things as much as possible, but too often I get backed into a corner.

  January 27, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I have been asked to be a guest speaker on Edward R. Murrow's CBS program, "This I Believe." I'm flattered but am thinking of turning it down; I don't relish getting on a national hookup and doing an emotional striptease. Furthermore, such things take me away from my regular work by distracting my mind, sometimes for days, from story. No mention was made of a fee and I think it's a sustaining program with the guest speakers appearing just for glory. I mention this because you may think the "glory" important enough that I should do it anyhow. I won't give them an answer until I hear from you.

  August 21, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . This entire year of '52 I have found frustrating. Today I tried to figure out exactly where the time had gone, since I have no copy to show for it. I can account for every day and don't see how, in most cases, I could have done anything about it, but that fact writes no stories. Believe me, Lurton, I have not loafed this year, but my time has been eaten away . . . operation, convalescence . . . cutting Rolling Stones, skating nationals, mechanics in the house three times wasting a month and a half, two unpaid writing jobs, two unpaid radio appearances, some unpaid speaking engagements, Arthur C. Clarke—one
week, the George O. Smiths—two weeks, other houseguests totaling perhaps a week, shopping for a new automobile . . . death of a close friend—one week, two weddings where I was involved and could not refuse my time without being a heel, innumerable visits from readers who were polite enough to write and ask to see me, a novel started and aborted, same for a short, the damned telephone ringing and ringing and ringing and myself the only person in the house . . . and finally a trip to Yellowstone and the Utah parks. That last I could have skipped but Ginny deserved a rest and I needed one, even if I hadn't been accomplishing anything. All of the above adds up to about time enough to answer mail and read proofs. Some of these things you may feel I could have avoided—well, close up to them, they could not have been avoided. The telephone situation we have finally licked by putting a bell in the garage where I can't hear it and a cutoff switch in the house, thereby evading the company's rules.

  Most of my troubles seem to arise from the difficulty I have in refusing to give my time to other people. Should I refuse to entertain the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society? Can I refuse to see a classmate who shows up in town with an engineer from my hometown in tow? A physicist from Johns Hopkins who is a fan of mine shows up and wants to meet me—can I refuse? Same for an air force intelligence officer who writes politely? Or the head of the Flying Saucer project? Today I was invited to address the southwest division of the Rocket Society and attend a night firing of a V-2 rocket—that one I turned down as it involved flying to White Sands—but it was a highly desirable date and one that I would have kept had I had the time. I don't know the answer but I am beginning to see why so many writers hire hotel rooms—I am entirely too well known for comfort. Anyhow, I am about to try another story.