If this thing doesn’t jell before long I had better abandon it, much as that goes against my personal work rules. I do have about three cops-and-robbers jobs which I can do, one a parallel-worlds yarn and the other two conventional space opera. I don’t want to do them; I want to do a big story. But perhaps I should emulate Clarence Bud-dington Kelland and give the customers what they are used to and will buy, rather than try to surprise them.
July 18, 1952: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
The book idea sounds tremendous, but I can well understand why you would find yourself in difficulties. Put it aside, work on something else, return, and find a new perspective.
June 10, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
…Unfortunately, I cannot report that I have cracked the novel…
The novel is really giving me a lot of trouble. This is the one that I told you about long ago, I believe-a Man-from-Mars job, infant survivor of first expedition to Mars is fetched back ty second expedition as a young adult, never having seen a human being in his life, most especially never having seen a woman or heard of sex. He has been raised by Martians, is educated and sophisticated by Martian standards, but is totally ignorant of Earth. What impact do Earth culture and conditions have on him? What impact does he have on Earth culture? How can all this be converted into a certain amount of cops-and-robbers and boy-meets-girl without bogging down into nothing but philosophical speculation? Contrariwise, what amount of philosophizing does it need to keep it from being a space opera with cardboard characters?
I got so bogged down on it last week that I had decided to shelve it for a year or so, when Stan Mullen [a science fiction author and personal friend] gave me a fight talk and quite a lot of help. Now I am continuing to try to sweat it through. When I get through I will either have nothing at all, or I’ll have a major novel. I rather doubt Ihut I will have a pulp serial; it doesn’t seem to be that sort of a story. I will continue to sweat on it and you won’t get anything else from me for quite a while.
January 13, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am now on page 68 of the draft of A Martian Named
Smith, which will be book length and adult-i.e., more i-x and profanity than is acceptable in juveniles. I cannot low estimate date of finish-draft as there are some plot
Kinks I am not yet sure about.
February 23, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am sorry to say the novel aborted last week-two months and 54,000 words of ms. wasted. Ginny says that it cannot be salvaged and I necessarily use her as a touchstone. Still worse, I suspect that she is right; I was never truly happy with it, despite a strong and novel theme. I am, of course, rather down about it, but I have started working on another one and hope to begin a draft in a day or two.
March 29, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I finished a draft a couple of days ago of the novel I have been writing and I am still groggy. It is very long (800 pages in its uncut form) and about all I can say about it now is that it is not science fiction and is nothing like anything I’ve turned out before. I intend to work on it all I possibly can until we leave, then have it smooth-typed while we are out of the country.
I am utterly exhausted from sixty-three days chained to this machine, twelve to fourteen hours a day. Now I must rest up in preparation for a physically arduous trip…while accomplishing a month of chores in two weeks, studying Russian history, politics, and geography so that I will understand some of what I see, and doing my damndest to cut about a third out of this new story. In the meantime, Shamrock O’Toole is about to have kittens any moment-the period is 60 to 65 days and today is her 62nd; she looks like a football resting on toothpicks and complains bitterly about the unfairness of it all. I’ll send you a kitten by air express timed so that you can’t send it back. Maybe four kittens.