Robert A. Heinlein Quotes About Writing
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Finish what you start. Keep submitting until it sells.
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People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living.
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Heinlein's Rules for Writers Rule One: You Must Write Rule Two: Finish What Your Start Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
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There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.
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I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble - you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step.
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Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?
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But if you didn't have more urgent things to do after supper [in boot camp], you could write a letter, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of the species (we became convinced that there was no such creatures, just mythology created by inflamed imaginations - one boy in our company claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was unanimously judged a liar and a braggart).
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One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
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Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
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I took up writing because I needed money. And I continued to write because it's safer than stealing and easier than working.
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The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
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