Heinlein’s Rules – #4

Yes, I missed a day. Such are the weird bits of life, right? But here I am today, ready to dig into the fourth of Heinlein’s rules—a process I’ve been going through expressly to question why it’s always rule #3 (“don’t rewrite”) that gets all the angst from most writers.

Specifically, back when I read the comment that started this whole thing, I posited that this weird placement of angst was because for a writer to focus on any of the other three was to reveal some kind of personal shortcoming. I should have gone a step farther and noted that beating one’s chest and complaining about Rule #3 also allowed a bit of virtue signaling in itself. Arguing that one most definitely should rewrite tells the world that, why yes, I most definitely care about getting my work to be perfect!

Hence railing against Rule #3 feels good.

Hidden in there though, is another little crutch. I’ll wait a moment though, and for the record state Heinlein’s fourth rule.

Rule 4: You Must Put Your Story on the Market

This rule is a bitch. Really, it is. Especially for new writers, but really for most everyone. Putting your work into the market is the point where our ego’s rubber hits the most rugged asphalt of world’s road.

So, really, when I hear writers talk about focusing on Rule #3 (getting the manuscript reviewed and churned over until it simple sparkles!) I admit I often substitute the phrase “I’m worried I’m not good enough, and rather than submit to the world and prove it, I’ll just tell myself it’s not ready.”

That’s so much easier, isn’t it?

When Heinlein presented these rules, there was no such thing as Indie publishing, of course. So the process had a particular kind of friction built into it. You had to write a cover letter, and address an envelope. And you had to go to the post office and mail it off. And then you had to wait. Sometimes a LONG time. You can still do that, of course. I do it with most of my short fiction. But today—as an Indie—I can sidestep that. Of course, there’s friction here, too. One has to format a work, and develop a cover, and do all the interstitials and…blah, blah, blah.

Either way, it’s work.

And that can be a problem for everyone. Dean Wesley Smith himself admits that he doesn’t “market” his work much anymore. Meaning that he doesn’t send short stories to magazines, and doesn’t push novels to traditional publishing houses. He does, however, publish his only Monthly magazine, which does eventually carry a lot of his work (All of it? I don’t know. But it’s a lot).

The point is that there are two reasons that Rule 4 is a big block for writers. The first being the psychological barrier of fear of failure (if I don’t submit/publish, I won’t find out “no one” wants my work), and the second is that the physical work is either daunting or not fun or both. While most Indies I know are fine with all that extra, no writer I know woke up as a kind being totally energized by the idea of actually building books.

In those cases, arguing about Rule 3 can be a crutch.

“The manuscript isn’t ready,” those writers tell ourselves (note that I’m purposefully using the term manuscript there rather than the term story). “It needs another pass.”

Again, if the story is not working then my view is that the problem is in Rule #2.

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I think it’s also fair to say that many established writers fall prey to pretending their problems with getting work out into the market is their prolific nature, and the nature of that work. It’s quite easy to say you just haven’t had time to get things published (or submitted). You may not be using arguments about Rule #3 as a crutch, but you’re probably dealing with the same psychology—he says, knowing he’s no psychologist. Sometimes—for a billion internal reasons that mostly boil down to fear and uncertainty—it’s just hard to do the thing you know you need to do.

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So, there we have it. Ruminations on why Heinlein’s Rule #3 can so heavily fill writers with angst. Am I right? I know I’m right for me, but I am a different writer than you are. And you totally get to have your own views. But the bottom line to me is that my ability to hold Heinlein’s third rule in their head and use it as a way to springboard my work is a key metric to where my emotional health is at any one time. If I’m letting work go, I’m in good space. If I’m holding onto things until I’m feeling that desperate sense of constipation that is the fear associated with the idea that the story I’m telling is horrible (which is almost never right), then I need to do some work on my mindset. When I do submit or publish I find that, in that odd sort of recursive way the world has, that simply letting work go into the market will help create a more useful mindset.

So in the same way I’ve rewritten the first three of Heinlein’s rules,  let me rewrite rule #4:

  • Rule 1: “A writer gets to must make stuff up.”
  • Rule 2: “A writer must tell a story”
  • Rule 3: “A writer should really stop futzing with a story that is finished.”
  • Rule 4: “A writer gets to celebrate the act of putting their stories into the market.”

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The kicker here is that I think there is a key part to Heinlein’s rules that Heinlein himself missed. Meaning I think there’s a Fifth Rule.

I will, of course, get to that on the next post.

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Speaking of celebrating getting work into the market, my brother and I have a fun new series that’s going to hit Kickstarter sometime next week. Click the button below to check it out and get notified of its launch!

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