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November 16, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
There will be a veritable spate of new Heinlein stories before this winter is over. Our bomb shelter is completed and stocked-and the durn thing was enormously more expensive than I had figured on when I started it. Now I have a couple of weeks of chores to clean up, including a big backlog of correspondence, filing, record keeping, etc.; then I shall apply the nose to this grindstone and keep it there all winter.
August 10, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
This fall I might do about 10,000 words for Boys' Life (query them if you like), or write the last story of the Future History [see The Past Through Tomorrow in Chapter XI, "Adult Novels"], Da Capo (piles of notes on it but it has never quite jelled) -- or possibly a new novel. Or perhaps all three in the order named. But that is a good many weeks away.
Re Scribner's: We might offer -- something someday-but only if Putnam's turns down a book.
April 17, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I have spent the past month on (a) flu, (b) reading several hundred pounds of accumulated magazines and technical reports, and (c) correspondence. The latter two are things I am endlessly behind on, always. There is no solution to the problem of trying to keep up with the ever-expanding frontier of science and technology, plus the world in general; I simply do the best I can, falling further behind each year, especially in electronics, biochemistry, and space travel technology. But I have made, implemented, and am keeping a good resolution concerning correspondence: I now answer almost all letters simply with postcards-a letter has to be really important to me to cause me to answer it by a real letter. The saving in time is very marked.
I will probably not write another story or book until after I learn whether or not I will have to go back to Hollywood this summer. And there is endless maintenance work to be done around this place. Today I got back to pick and shovel for the first time: cleaning some tons of silt out of my middle irrigation pool...silt from a flood clear back in September or earlier. Monday I expect to start on concrete work, repairing the lowest dam, if the weather holds. This has been a cold, very late spring. Gi
June 23, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am very anxious to get back to writing, including new copy for the proposed boy scout book-and I've just had a very pleasant, long letter from -- telling me that -- has again raised their rates...and that he would expect to pay me a still higher bonus rate if I'll ever come through with copy. But, Lurton, I've never worked any harder in my life than right now and it is utterly-impossible for me to turn out fiction until I get this [Santa Cruz] house finished. Every time I turn my back something goes wrong. The cabinet and finish work is slowly (and very expensively) being finished. After that we still have the floors, ceilings, and fireplaces to do, plus the driveway, the front steps, and some exterior painting. It feels like an endless nightmare and the costs are utterly unbelievable. But there is no way to stop-short of being forced to stop by ru
September 16, 1973: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
...In the meantime, I am hotter than a $2 pistol on three books. One is fiction and will be a long time in writing, as I must do much research on the history and culture and ma
The second book is a memoirs-autobiography job to be published posthumously-and left uncopyrighted till then (hence of zero cash value in probate) -- as a little bonus to Gi
But the third book will be written and finished for publication as soon as I am free of taking care of Gi