Fred Kiesche of Texas Best Grok linked to Heinlein’s 5 Rules For Writers, plus one.
I’ve never gotten past Rule Number One and probably never will but if I ever did seriously try to write a book, or even a short story, the rule that would give me the most trouble is Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order. I don’t see how I could not rewrite. I can’t get even get through a blog post without rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. And then later I still think, “I wish I’d said that differently.”
Also, just the idea of an editor telling me I have to change something I wrote discourages me from even trying. I want my work to be all my work. If it has my name on it should be 100 percent my ideas and my words. I guess that’s very unprofessional of me. Editors are a fact of life for writers. So I guess that’s another reason I’ll never be a writer.
September 24th, 2008 - 9:08 am
Coming at it from the perspective of someone who “must” write (for promotion and tenure) and who writes non-fiction (though most journal articles aren’t even exciting enough to earn that name in my mind), I feel much the same.
It’s even WORSE having to rewrite not only at the behest of some editor, but to please a couple of capricious “reviewers,” who may or may not understand the system in which you are working.
I don’t publish as much as some folks (and I hope it’s enough for Full Professor, after which I can kind of scale back on the research) because I hate the process so much. It can be totally self-confidence destroying to spend over a year writing something, to rewrite it multiple times, and then get it back with contradictory comments from three different reviewers and a letter from the editor politely suggesting you ash-can the whole project.
I can’t quite imagine doing CREATIVE type writing, where you actually put in a little of your soul, and dealing with the rejection.
September 24th, 2008 - 12:55 pm
Heh, I can never read a reference to Heinlein’s writing rules without hearing them in his voice.