If you’ve followed along, you know I’ve been chatting about Heinlein’s Rules. They are good, and important, and everything else you can say about them. They are also a little dated in that they presume the existence of an editor, but we can sidestep that a bit. Or, at least I sidestepped them a bit as I was restating the rules.
The audacity, right?
Restating the rules of an icon. Yikes. But I did, and today I’ll go one step beyond that level of audacity to add in a fifth law, or as I note in my title, at least a corollary of my own.
First, though, let me state the full set of Heinlein’s Rules, and then my effort to reposition them.
Heinlein’s Original Rules
Rule 1: You must write
Rule 2: You must finish what you write
Rule 3: You must refrain from revision except at an editor’s request
Rule 4: You must put your work on the market
Ron’s Restatements
Rule 1: A writer gets to must make stuff up.
Rule 2: A writer must tell a story
Rule 3: A writer must stop futzing with a story that is finished.
Rule 4: A writer gets to celebrate the act of getting their stories into the market.
I should stop here and say that I just fought the urge to fiddle with my restatements, which is deliciously recursive, isn’t it? I left them alone, though. They’re done, and they are good enough. Further revision might add some precision, or might not.
Anyway, it struck me that there was a fifth law that remained unstated here.
It plays out like this…
When I posted the little bit on Rule #3, excellent writer and good friend David H. Hendrickson replied with a note that backed my views, and presented a personal anecdote about how switching to strict adherence to Rule 3 allowed him to feel the joyful release that one gets when a project is finished, an emotion that he could then carry into his next project.
Therein lies the true beauty of this creative life.
Always be working on fun things.
Rule #3, especially when combined with Rule #4, inherently enables this.
Working on, then finishing, and then releasing fun things is inherently invigorating. My daughter has taken it down to two steps: “Make Your Cool Stuff, Show Your Cool Stuff to People.” I like that.
So, here we go:
Rule #5/Corrolary:
A writer funnels the joy(*) that comes from completion of a project back into their next work.
Some writers will argue that the emotion they feel after completing a project is not joy so much as loss, or at least melancholy. They loved the work. They miss it. Perhaps this is the writerly form of postpartum depression. Being biologically male, I’ll never be able to tell, of course. But the equation feels right in direction even if the intensity is way off. Feel free to quibble. Regardless, the point stands that the emotion I feel when I finish various projects can vary widely, so I assume the term “joy” up there is debatable.
So, I’ll just say that you can swap out any emotion you want.
Anger? Anxiety? Worry? That timeless angst of trying to decide what to do next?
All of it works, really. A writer (creator) can use anything here, as long as we can focus on it with some sense of wonder. It’s amazing, right, that despite any angst or barrier we gave ourselves, we somehow finished a project and got to the stage where we could feel this kind of emotion. If that emotion is joy, that’s easiest. But—even if the act of getting something to the market brings great anxiety—good on you. You’ve achieved that moment.
Embrace that joy/anxiety.
Hug it to yourself, give your creation a little cheer and then tell it that you’re not going to leave it alone out there in the cold world of market forces. Promise that you’ll use it to create it a sibling, and then another, and another, but that you’ll never forget it as you move onto the next thing.
Thank that work for giving you something special—whatever that something was.
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All right, maybe that last bit was a little woo-woo for you. That’s fine.
Do what you need to do.
Over the past several years, I’ve taken to saying that the main thing it takes to have a life as a creator is to find ways to keep your emotional state in such a place that you can always do your work, and my take on Rule #5 encompasses this idea.
A writer really does need to think about Heinlein’s rules (preferably as restated).
But a writer also needs to follow them over, and over, and over again.
That takes joy, right? Somewhere along the way, anyway. Even if it cycles through all the other emotions, it eventually hits on whatever we each determine brings joy, happiness, and satisfaction to us.
So ride that joy. When you finish a work, and follow Rule #4 (be it trad submission or Indie publishing), hop on the Rule #5 Corollary train, and once again revel in the fact that writers get to make stuff up.
It’s a great life, after all.