Quote of the Day - Heinlein’s Rules of Writing

• You Must Write

• You Must Finish What You Write

• You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except To Editorial Order

• You Must Place It On The Market

• You Must Keep It On The Market Until Sold

Robert Heinlein

With the new year at hand, the bane of every new year is upon us: New Year's resolutions. You tell yourself "I'm gonna really, really, really, do that thing I've failed at for the last nine years running. Who knows? Tenth time might be the charm."

There is nothing wrong with setting goals. I do it all the time. It is a good thing. While you may not achieve every goal you set, you achieve exactly none of the goals you don't set. My beef is tying that goal to an arbitrary beginning of the year. It seems unserious. If you are going to set goals, don't wait until New Year's Eve. Just do it when it's appropriate. Everyone else seems to disagree with me (something I am used to), so scads of you will be making New Year's resolutions anyway.

One of the more popular resolutions among the more intellectually inclined (which includes many Ricochetti) is "This year I'm gonna become a writer."

People have in their minds this image that being a published author sets one apart, makes you a superior being. That if you simply get paid for a few magazine articles; if you get an actual book published, that adds 10 points (at least!) to your IQ.

I am a published author. I have 49-1/2 books in print (1/2 because I co-authored one book), three more accepted for publication and awaiting publication, four more under contract, and one additional one I will finish up this weekend and deliver on New Year's Day. (God bless electronic delivery.) I have also written several hundred published magazine articles, over 800 book reviews and around 200 blurbs. That's the stuff I got paid for. It does not count the Ricochet pieces and other free pieces I have done.

Guess what. Being a published author means you are a published author. It does not make you any smarter, or more likeable, or really anything other than a published author. It almost certainly won't make you rich.

Yes, there are a very few that get rich from writing, but they are exceptions. Median annual writing income is around $10,000 USD. That means half the people who get paid for writing get less than $10,000 a year while the other half get more than that. I am above the median, but I make more from one year at my day job as an engineer than I get from four or five years of writing.

Why do I write? For me it is fun. Being paid is also a way I keep score. But it is also a lot of work. A long time ago Harry Harrison observed that most people don't want to be writers. They want to have written. Because writing is hard. Not physically, but mentally and emotionally. It requires a lot of time in isolation or ignoring those around you. It means sitting in front of a computer (or more rarely today a typewriter or pad of paper) for hours putting together words. Doing it every day until you get your piece done, whether it is a 400 word article or an 80,000 word book. Plus hours researching.

It is a whole lot easier to do the cocktail circuit and tell everyone you are a writer (because you got one short-short published in a literary periodical) than it is to actually sit down and write. To image those of the opposite sex throwing themselves at you because you utter the magic phrase "I'm an author," than to put 2000 words on paper or pixels. (From the number of times I have seen that happen in stories I believe it must be a favorite fantasy of writers. In my experience I am more likely to see a unicorn than have some woman tell me they want to have my babies when I tell them I am an author.)

If none of this has dissuaded you from making that resolution of "This year I'm GONNA be a writer" you cannot go wrong by following Heinlein's Rules of Writing.

The first two are obvious. To be a writer you have to write. To be a published writer you have to finish what you write. Lots of folks make great starts but fail to finish what they start. Even Mark Twain fell into that trap at times. (Huckleberry sat unfinished in a drawer for years.) I have outlines of books and stories awaiting completion myself. But I finish what I start unless there is a good reason.

The third is often misunderstood. It does not mean don't edit as you write. Rather it means stop fiddling with what you have finished. Nothing you write will be perfect. Once it is good enough declare it done and move on. The editor will tell you if stuff needs changing. That's what rewriting to editorial direction means. It is easy to fall into the trap of "one more change and then it's ready" until you never get the work done.

The final two rules are what turn you into a published author. You must send your work out to get someone to buy it. Even harder, when you get it back, rejected, you have to send it out to someone else to reject. If you keep it on the market, it eventually finds a home. If you cannot take rejection you will never be a writer.

One reason I might be a successful writer is very few people liked me when I was a child. (Looking back at the young me, I understand why - I was a difficult child.) But I grew up expecting rejection, so getting turned down was normal. I sent it out again until I did have it accepted.

If you really want to be a writer, follow Heinlein's Rules. They are simple — if not easy.