Grumbles From the Grave

by Robert A. Heinlein

  September 4, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Now, about writing time: since the war it has been one damn thing after another, poor health, domestic trouble, housebuilding, et al. I hope that the future will be quieter. If not, I will simply do the best I can under the circumstances. Getting an office away from the house is not a solution I want at all—I've just finished a house with an office built into it. One minor new circumstance should be a help—we finally have a cutoff switch for the telephone, after long wrangling with the phone company.

  I wrote to you as extensively as I did simply to let you know that my lack of output this year has not been through laziness but through complications. One problem I have not yet found a satisfactory solution to is the demand on my time resulting from becoming better known. I answer all fan mail and it comes in stacks. That is almost necessary, isn't it? I limit the answers to postcards but it takes time. There are frequent requests for me to speak in public—one only last night. I have adopted a policy of refusing such invitations if possible—but what do I do when the Colorado Librarians' Association asks me? . . . Perhaps the greatest time waster is the person who reads my stuff, is coming to Colorado Springs, and wants to call on me—and an amazing number of them manage to find their way to Colorado Springs, remote as this place is. If they simply walk in on me I won't see them. . . . But if they write or telephone and are courteous, I find it hard to give them a cold brush-off. I see no good answer to this problem, but will have to handle it by expediency as I go along.

  * * *

  . . . This is probably the very last of the V-2s and it will be one of the very few unclassified firings for a long time. There is nothing like watching one of the big ones climb for outer space—it will make a believer out of you, I warrant. I do not regard a trip to White Sands as lost time for me; it comes under the same head as research. Since I write about rockets, I need to know what they sound like, talk to rocket men. Besides that, I will have an opportunity to meet Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered the planet Pluto and, perhaps, to see the canals of Mars through his telescope. . . . This is almost a once-in-a-lifetime thing, as perfect seeing, the right telescope, and the right technique are a rare combination.

  January 6, 1953: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

  The script for the "This I Believe" program just checked in. It is certainly splendid, the best I have come in contact with. I have been especially interested in this program because one of my boys [clients], Ed Morgan, has been associated with it since the beginning. I do think this material of yours was excellent, and I am very proud of you.

  THIS I BELIEVE

  I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

  Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him.

  My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee—no prospect of a fee—I believe in Doc.

  I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town saying, "I'm hungry," and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, "To heck with you—I got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down."

  I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, "Climb in, Mac—how far you going?"

  I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.

  I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

  I believe that almost all politicians are honest . . . there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.

  I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in—I am proud to belong to—the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

  And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet—will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency.

  This I believe with all my heart.

  June 6, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  No other news save that the Silly Season has opened and we have many visitors; this will continue until fall. One of my plebes showed up this week—an admiral now and chief of research, a job I would like to have had (and might have achieved) if I hadn't gotten TB a long time ago. However, all in all, I like being a writer and don't really miss not being an admiral. (Dan Gallery managed to be both, but he is exceptional!)

  August 10, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  We have been badly slowed down, too, by visitors, a steady flood of them all summer long, friends, relatives, and readers, plus some of the organized science fiction fans—and none of them invited, not even the relatives nor any of the friends. . . . This place being a resort, people simply pour through here in the summer and if I shut off the phone, they ring the doorbell. I don't ever intend to try to write a story in Colorado Springs again between June 1st and September 1st; it is too much like trying to write directly under a busy three-holer. Even if my relatives had stayed home (and, damn it, they all traveled this year), friends, acquaintances, and strangers were enough to keep us in a hooraw. Had I not been interrupted so many, many times by visitors, the work I was doing would have been farther along and the flood damage would not have been nearly so severe.

  May 6, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  The letter you received from Kenneth Green (and so kindly answered) is much more typical of fan mail—pleasant but with the same old phrases over and over again, and I get as tired of answering them as an old whore gets of climbing those stairs. I'll drop young Green a card in this mail, however; I always answer them, all but the crackpot ones.

  But I have instituted a New Public Relations Policy—one which makes me almost as hard-to-get as the mysterious Mr. B. Traven. Some years ago you sent to me a clipping of Art Buchwald's column with a long quotation from Thornton Wilder in which Wilder declared such a policy, one in which he resolved not to let strangers waste his time, not in any fashion. I have kept that clipping up over my typewriter ever since you sent it to me—but I have not emulated it very well.

  But I am pushing sixty now
myself and it gets harder and harder each year to turn out a decent amount of copy—largely because total strangers want such large chunks of my time. I am darn well going to quit it! In fact, I have quit it. The only concession I am making is that I will continue to answer politely worded fan mail—but only by postcards . . . and usually picture postcards which have no return address and room only for a sentence or two. Even that response costs me a dime for materials and postage, plus (much more important) about fifty cents' worth of my working, professional time that should be put on story-writing.

  Someday I may be so browned off and bored with it that I will answer only such letters as are accompanied by stamped and self-addressed envelopes (about one in twenty). I was taught in school always to enclose such in writing to a stranger; my present mail shows that most teachers do not teach this courtesy today, as a lot of my mail starts out: "Dear Mr. Heinlein, Our English class is writing to their favorite author—" but a reply envelope rarely is enclosed, although the letter usually demands a reply and asks endless questions—often with a deadline stated.

  Mr. Wilder says, in that clipping you sent me: "I hereby serve notice on the school children of America . . . that I am going to dump all their letters—" I'm not going to go quite that far just yet, Lurton—but I am now ignoring all requests for pictures and for anything which requires me to stir out of my chair to answer—or which requires me to use an envelope rather than a postcard when said envelope has not been supplied by the petitioner.

  No doubt this will lose me a certain amount of good will. But it will greatly increase my working time—on pay copy—and the problem had grown way out of hand. To supplement this greatly reduced program on fan mail I am resolved not to do anything I don't want to do. No more public speeches, not even for librarians. No more interviews given to school kids—other than by telephone. No more "Library Week" appearances. No more breaking off my work (whether writing or mixing cement) to visit with strangers who "just happened to be passing through town and have always wanted to meet" me—unless it suits me and they manage to make themselves sound interesting enough to warrant the time. No more messing around with books I don't want to read sent to me, unsolicited, in the mails—and this includes books sent to me by Putnam and its associated companies, as the promotion department seems to feel that any Putnam-published writer should be willing at any time to act as an unpaid reviewer and source of trained-seal favorable testimonials. (They put out a lot of good books, but they never send me those books; they send me little stinkers that should never have been published.)

  No more acknowledgments of fan magazines sent to me—it simply results in more of them and requests for free copy.

  In short, no more of anything unless it durn well suits me and adds to my own pleasure in life. More and more, over the years, strangers have been nibbling away at my time. It has reached the point where, if I would let them, all of my working time would be wasted on the demands of strangers. So I am lowering the boom on all of it—and if this makes me a rude son of a bitch, so be it. My present life expectancy is seventeen years; I'm damned if I will spend it answering silly questions about "Where do you get your ideas?" and "Why did you take up the writing of science fiction?" several thousand or more times. I hereby declare that an author has no responsibility of any sort to the public . . . other than the responsibility to write stories as well as he knows how.

  If I can stick to this, I should get in quite a lot more writing, and quite a lot more healthy work with pick and shovel and trowel—and a judicious mixture of these two may enable me to stretch that life expectancy quite a bit. But I'm not going to let those remaining years be nibbled away and wasted by the trivia that some thousands of faceless strangers seem to feel is their right to demand from anyone in a semi-public occupation.

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

  Herewith is a curious letter from an instructor, ----, at the U. of Oregon. I was about to tell him that I could not stop him, but not to let me see the result—but I decided that I had better let you see this and get your advice and/or veto. If Mr. ---- does this adaptation "just for fun," as he proposes, I suspect that he will then fall in love with his own efforts and get very itchy to produce it. Which could be embarrassing. Lurton, even though "Green Hills" is a short, I think it has possibilities—someday—as a musical motion picture. So I am hesitant to authorize anything which might cloud the MP or stage rights. What shall I tell him? Or do you prefer to write to him? (I'm not urging you to—not trying to shove it on you. But I do want your advice.)

  October 12, 1967: Margo Fischer [secretary to] Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

  A drunk began calling at 3:15 insisting on Heinlein's phone number . . . After telling him at least seven times that he would have to write a letter which would be forwarded airmail, he became sarcastic and went on and on. After 15 minutes I told him I was hanging up, and I did. He was incoherent and it was impossible to tell him he had to write a letter. He said he would wire. He wanted to know about "—We Also Walk Dogs." I told him it was in an anthology published by World. He'll probably call you and be abusive about me. Over and over he kept saying, "Mam, Mam"—long silence, then he'd say, "It's a hard world." Silence. Then, "We should all be courteous to one another." Etc.

  February 28, 1968: Margo Fischer to Robert A. Heinlein

  Here's a little ego boo for you.

  The telephone just rang. A voice said, "I was told I could get some information from you. About one of your clients. About Robert Heinlein." Cagey Margo. "Who is this?" "I'm nobody—that is, nobody in the business," he said. "Just a Heinlein fan." Me again—"Well, what did you want to know?"

  He wanted to know when Heinlein was going to have another book. "He hasn't written anything for some time," was the complaint. "I have two favorite authors. Michener and Heinlein. Michener just came out with one and I was hoping I could make it a double red-letter day."

  Then he added, "Heinlein is the one bright spot in this whole fantasy-science-fiction world." A pause. "Moon is the last one he's written, right?" Then I said, "Have you read Stranger?" Answer: "Four times." Finally, "Just one more thing—how long does it usually take him to write a book?"

  HOW CAN YOU DEPRIVE YOUR FANS A MINUTE LONGER, BOB?

  CHAPTER IX

  MISCELLANY

  STUDY

  April 10, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  No, we are not contemplating any immediate ventures into Arabic-speaking lands; all of Africa and the Middle East are too unstable at the present time to be attractive—besides, we've been there a couple of times. Tackling Arabic is simply to keep my mind loosened up with something new. It could have been any language I don't know, but I picked it because it is one of the five "critical" languages as listed by the State Department—i.e., an important language which is known by too few Americans; they have plenty of people who know French, German, Spanish, and such. One of the five is Russian and I didn't want to duplicate what Ginny has already done (besides, Russian is very hard; Arabic is relatively simple, save for the odd alphabet) and two of the critical languages are tonal languages, and my ear for tones is not very good; I don't think I could learn them as an adult. But I must admit that I have made no real progress as yet; I've nothing to force me to a schedule and there are too many other things that demand attention.

  But I would like to, in time, be able to be of some use to the country by knowing a language which is needed. But if it is never of any use that way, I find the study of strange languages rewarding per se; I always learn a lot about the people and the culture when I tackle one.

  But I have a dozen subjects that I want to study. I would like to go back to school and take a formal course in electronics; it has changed so much since I studied it more than thirty years ago—and I may, some day soon. About twenty years ago I dropped out of a figure-drawing class because I needed to buckle down and pay off a mortgage—and that turned me into a writer and I haven't been b
ack. But I want to go back, it is something I love doing—and I would like to add a wing to this house and get into sculpture again, too, but simply signing up for a figure sketching class is more likely. I am not a still-life artist. There are only five things really worth drawing; four of them are pretty girls and the fifth is cats.

  PREDICTIONS

  (147)

  Robert Heinlein with Teense in the dining room at Bonny Boon.

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

  . . . I could list many more variables—never mind. Swami Heinlein will now gaze into the crystal ball. First unmanned rocket to the Moon in five years. First manned rocket in ten years. Permanent base there in fifteen years. After that, anything! Several decades of exploring the solar system with everyone falling all over each other to do it first and stake out claims.

  However, we may wake up some morning and find that the Russians have quietly beaten us to it, and that the Lunar S.S.R.—eight scientists and technicians, six men, two women—has petitioned the Kremlin for admission of the Moon to the USSR. That's another unknown variable.

  And keep your eyes on the British—the British Interplanetary Society is determined to get there first.

  The worst thing about this business of predicting technical advance is that there is an almost insuperable tendency to be too conservative. In almost every case, correct prophecy of the Jules Verne type has failed in the one respect of putting the predicted advance too far in the future. Based on past record, if the figures I gave above are wrong, they are almost certainly wrong in being too timid. Space flight may come even sooner. I know that, yet I have trouble believing it.

  November 7, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . My real claim to being a student of the future, if I have a claim, lies in noting things going on now and then in examining speculatively what those trends could mean—particularly with respect to atomics, space travel, geriatrics, genetics, propaganda techniques, and food supply. To evaluate my success in such it would be necessary for a person to have some familiarity with my published writings. But I don't intend to dig through my writings and say, "Look, here in Beyond This Horizon I predicted the robot-secretary recording telephone and now it has been patented!" I did—and it has—but that doesn't mean anything. The short-term prediction of gimmicks isn't prophecy; it is merely a parlor trick.