Heinlein’s Rules, Learning and Writing
Recently, Dean Wesley Smith blogged about Heinlein’s Rules and learning from them . He listed the rules , and I had to think about what they might mean for me, and for my writing. And this is also a very important part of learning, another point on which I agree with Dean—and another point on which he blogged recently . So, what did I think? Well, here are my initial responses: #1 You must write. Totally Agree. You must write. If you do not write, you have nothing to sell. #2 You must finish what you write. Absolutely: If you do not finish what you write, you have lots of writing, and still nothing to sell. #3 You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order. Not so sure about this. Yes, I write one draft and I tend not to redraft, so I agree here. No major rewrites. However, since I’m my own editor, it’s me who gives the orders—as well as any beta readers I’ve found… I have to be careful, or the edit-rewrite thing could get very circular. So, no, I don’t rewrit...