Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

the house needed paint and some repairs; I wanted to make a trip to New York; and it

would not hurt to have a couple of hundred extra in the bank as a cushion-and I had

a dozen-odd stories in file, planned and ready to write.

So I wrote MAGIC, INCORPORATED and started east on the proceeds, and wrote

THEY and SIXTH COLUMN while I was on that trip. The latter was the only story of

mine ever influenced to any marked degree by John W. Campbell, Jr. He had in file an

unsold story he had written some years earlier. JWC did not show me his manuscript;

instead he told me the story line orally and stated that, if I would write it, he

would buy it.

He needed a serial; I needed an automobile. I took the brass check.

Writing SIXTH COLUMN was a job I sweated over. I had to reslant it to remove

racist aspects of the original story line. And I didn’t really believe the

pseudoscientific rationale of Campbell’s three spectra-so I worked especially hard

to make it sound realistic.

It worked out all right. The check for the serial, plus 35~ in cash, bought

me that new car.. . and the book editions continue to sell and sell and sell, and

have earned more than forty times as much as I was paid for the serial. So it was a

financial success. . but I do not consider it to be an artistic success.

While I was back east I told Campbell of my plans to quit writing later that

year. He was not pleased as I was then his largest supplier of copy. I finally said,

“John, I am not going to write any more stories against deadlines. But I do have a

few more stories on tap that I could write. I’ll send you a story from time to

time.. . until the day

comes when you bounce one. At that point we’re through. Now that I know you

personally, having a story rejected by you would be too traumatic.”

So I went back to California and sold him CROOKED HOUSE and LOGIC OF EMPIRE

and UNIVERSE and SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY and METHUSELAH’S CHILDREN and BY HIS

BOOTSTRAPS and COMMON SENSE and GOLDFISH BOWL and BEYOND THIS HORIZON and WALDO and

THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG-which brings us smack up against World

War II.

Campbell did bounce one of the above (and I shan’t say which one) and I

promptly retired-put in a new irrigation system-built a garden terrace-~resumed

serious photography, etc. This went on for about a month when I found that I was

beginning to be vaguely ill: poor appetite, loss of weight, insomnia, jittery,

absentminded-much like the early symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, and I thought,

“Damn it, am I going to have still a third attack?”

Campbell dropped me a note and asked why he hadn’t heard from me?-I reminded

him of our conversation months past: He had rejected one of my stories and that

marked my retirement from an occupation that I had never planned to pursue

permanently.

He wrote back and asked for another look at the story he had bounced. I sent

it to him, he returned it promptly with the recommendation that I take out this

comma, speed up the 1st half of page umpteen, delete that adjective-fiddle changes

that Katie Tarrant would have done if told to.

I sat down at my typewriter to make the suggested changes.. . and suddenly

realized that I felt good for the first time in weeks.

Bill “Tony Boucher” White had been dead right. Once you get the monkey on

your back there is no cure short of the grave. I can leave the typewriter alone for

weeks, even months, by going to sea. I can hold off for any necessary time if I am

strenuously engaged in some other full-time,

worthwhile occupation such as a con~ctruction job, a political campaign, or (damn

it!) recovering from illness.

But if I simply loaf for more than two or three days, that monkey starts

niggling at me. Then nothing short of a few thousand words will soothe my nerves.

And as I get older the attacks get worse; it is beginning to take 300,000 words and