“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, through some incredibly lucky mix-up, the studio in which I was supposed to rehearse was taken up by some glee club that refused to vacate until they got all their notes properly sour. When the time came to go on, therefore, I had to go on without rehearsal. . . .” I went on to talk cheerfully on weight and mass for half an hour.

  I was told later that when I delivered my first two sentences the director in the control booth turned a pale pastel green and was restrained by force from lunging into the studio to extirpate me from the face of the earth.

  Just the same, the program went well, and I thought surely they would thereafter let me go on without rehearsal. But no, it was back to rehearsals and discomfort.

  10

  The year 1959, my first full year as a full-time writer, saw my situation not very much changed from that of the year before. Again, I published four books in the course of the year:

  29. Nine Tomorrows (Doubleday)

  30. The Clock We Live On (Abelard-Schuman)

  31. Words of Science (Houghton Mifflin)

  32. Realm of Numbers (Houghton Mifflin)

  Among them were my first books with Houghton Mifflin.

  As for my writing earnings for 1959, those came to $29,100. This came to some $5,000 short of the year before, but the difference was almost entirely the result of the lack of a school salary and a grant allotment. I didn’t let that bother me. I was supporting myself and the family quite handsomely by pre-1958 standards, and I was content to earn $30,000 a year, give or take a couple of thousand dollars, for the rest of my life.

  11

  But the evil day came. On January 2, 1960, I was forty years old, and middle-aged. There is no possibility of pretending to youth at forty. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with middle age, but it comes hard to a person who is a child prodigy by profession.

  Of course, I have never permitted myself to act old, or to admit to being old, or even middle-aged, in public. I maintain always that I am “a little over thirty” and that I am “in my late youth.” I shall do that however long I live, and for however long my audience laughs indulgently at my pleasant presumption.

  Once, having said I was “in my late youth” and gotten my indulgent laugh, I couldn’t resist playing for a larger one by pausing and saying in a confidential manner, “I call it my ‘late youth’ because it’s dead.” I did get my larger laugh, but I’d rather not use the line.

  There were four separate celebrations involving cake that day. At noon, I got cake and ice cream for the whole family, and then, in the afternoon, a friend of mine, George Christie, and his wife, Doreen, appeared with a cake of their own. George is a psychiatrist and I remember him best for his comment when someone recited a few of my eccentricities. George thought about it and then said, “Well, Isaac, being a genius, doesn’t fall under the rules.”

  I thought it was a very sensible analysis of the situation, and wondered if there were any way I could persuade the whole world to believe this.

  At a meeting, that evening, of the Interplanetary Exploration Society (which still existed in Boston, thanks to Alma Hill), cake and ice cream were served in my honor. Later, we celebrated with Blanca Batteau, a beautiful girl of Basque origin. (Her husband, Wayne, was a special favorite of John Campbell’s.) Blanca was also born on January 2, but had only turned thirty-five and looked considerably younger despite the fact that she had borne six children.

  My birthday gift to myself was the just-about-completion of the first draft of The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science. I had done something like four hundred thousand words in three months. In fact, I had already begun final copy, though there still remained a bit of first draft to do, and that final copy was moving as quickly as the first draft had.

  By January 27, I was able to bring half the manuscript in completed form with me to New York for delivery to Basic Books. Svirsky read enough of it to be able to tell me the next day that he approved. He sounded, in fact, very enthusiastic.

  12

  The Wellsprings of Life, which I had completed the previous June and which I had confidently expected to be published in the spring of 1960, was delayed. Abelard-Schuman printed their books in Great Britain in order to save money, and a printing strike there delayed matters. I had urged Hal Cantor to have the book printed in the United States, but the need to keep costs down was paramount, and Abelard-Schuman gambled on a short strike and lost. My other books in press with them were also delayed.

  I could understand the publisher’s need to save money, but on the other hand, any delay in publishing a science book increased the chance of obsolescence by publication date and I was very annoyed. Again, publication delays mean a postponement of the date on which a book starts to earn its keep, and that was no great cause for joy either.

  I wouldn’t have minded so much if it weren’t that Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin had never delayed a book on me.

  13

  Scholastic Magazines had purchased Science World from Street & Smith. I had written for the magazine both before and after the sale, and in that way met Eric Berger, a gray-haired, rock-jawed gentleman with a limp and a gravelly voice. He was warm, friendly, and a great kidder, who was not always easy to work with since he insisted on having ideas of his own that did not always mesh with mine.

  He talked me into doing a series of short biographies of thirty scientists from Archimedes to Robert Goddard. I had done them and they had been published, one by one, week by week, through late 1958 and early 1959 in Senior Scholastic.

  The obvious thing to do with them afterward was to put them together into a book. What I wanted to do was to have Houghton Mifflin do it in hard-cover as a book entitled Breakthroughs in Science, and then have them take care of arranging the Scholastic soft-cover version.

  Scholastic, however, insisted on remaining in control. They would put out the soft-cover, negotiate the hard-cover with Houghton Mifflin, and take care of all royalty payments themselves.

  Except that there would be no royalty payments. Scholastic wanted to pay me a flat sum for the hard-cover and they wanted to split that flat sum 30 per cent to Eric and 70 per cent to myself.

  I had never split payment with an editor before, but the whole conception of the series had been Eric’s, and I felt that was worth something, so I agreed to the 30–70 split. I drew the line at the flat sum, however. I wanted royalties.

  Scholastic, with Eric as its spokesman, pointed out that the soft-cover edition would be simultaneous with the hard-cover and that that would severely limit sales of the latter. Therefore the flat payment was a “good deal” in that it would certainly amount to more than the royalties would. In other words, Scholastic would collect less in royalties from Houghton Mifflin than they would pay out to me in a flat sum, so that Scholastic was being generous.

  Frankly, I couldn’t believe that Scholastic was so stubbornly insistent on being generous. I told them that my hard-covers sold regardless of a soft-cover edition and I would be willing to take my chances on a royalty arrangement.

  On February 9, 1960 (Robyn’s fifth birthday), Eric called angrily and said that I might be willing to take my chances on a royalty arrangement, but he wasn’t, and I had no right to insist on a risk he would have to share.

  I considered that a low blow but I gave in. However, I arranged to have Houghton Mifflin send me sales figures on the hard-cover edition each time they sent royalties to Scholastic.

  I then grimly began to calculate my royalties from statement to statement and, precisely as I had told them, the soft-cover edition did not affect the hard-cover sales and, after a couple of years, the royalties overtook that flat sum they paid me.

  I then wrote a letter to Scholastic and informed them of this fact and reminded them that I had predicted it. I also told Eric the same thing and reminded him that his hardheaded business brain had led him into a loss that would grow endlessly from year to year, and was Scholastic still in the mood to be generous?

  Each statement time, I sent a more strongly worded letter to Scholastic and to Eric, each time giving the total that I considered I had unfairly lost, and eventually Scholastic gave in. A new contract was prepared on a royalty basis, and back royalties were paid. Royalties on the book have been coming in to this day.

  14

  I went to New York on February 25, 1960, and visited Basic Books where Svirsky, to my utter horror, began to talk about cutting The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science in half to make it fit into one volume. I argued against that vehemently, and when he seemed unmoved, I left with the grim determination that this would not happen.

  The next day I attended a meeting of the Trap Door Spiders as a guest of Sprague de Camp. The club, which had been the brainchild of Fletcher Pratt, survived his death. This was the first time I had attended.

  Present were not only Sprague, John Clark, and Willy Ley, but also Basil Davenport, whom I now met for the first time. He was a terribly erudite gentleman who could recite any number of dirty limericks so rapidly that it was almost impossible to follow him. He seemed to be a heavy drinker, and since I never met him but on convivial occasions, I’m not sure I ever saw him completely sober. He was a very pleasant and warm person, however, and I took a great liking to him.

  Because the Trap Door Spiders is a stag organization of sharply limited membership, I have occasionally noted a readiness on the part of outsiders to believe it to be the type of meeting in which naked women arise out of cakes.

  Not so; it is almost unbearably respectable, and its members tend to be middle-aged, personally conservative (though sometimes politically liberal), and highly intelligent. The whole purpose of the club is to engage in conversation (that almost lost art) over food and drink.

  It is customary after a TDS dinner for the guests to be grilled, but that is not as terrible as it sounds. It only means that he is to be drawn out concerning the nature of his profession and encouraged to discuss those facets of his specialized interests that might titillate the curiosity of the members present. The traditional first question is “Mr. So-and-so, how do you justify your existence?”

  The club meets at 6:30 p.m., and after an hour of drinks and hors d’oeuvres, dinner starts at 7:30 p.m. The grilling starts at about 9:00 p.m., and by 11:00 p.m. all are on their way home. One can scarcely ask for an evening that does less harm and gives greater pleasure. On this occasion, I certainly enjoyed myself exceedingly.

  Sprague invited me to join the club after the dinner was over, and I was strongly tempted to do so. It would have meant regular visits to New York, however, and although I was visiting New York on a more or less monthly basis, I wanted to remain flexible and to go when I had a manuscript to deliver or some important business to discuss—and not when an irrelevant banquet, however enjoyable, was in the offing.

  15

  When I got back to Boston, I found copies of The Living River waiting for me. It was the book I had agreed to write for Yeager three years before, and it was that agreement that had occasioned my confrontations with Keefer. Now here was the book, my first adult science book for the general public.

  It was conceived, of course, as the first book of a pair, but under the circumstances, I postponed the second—about cardiovascular research—indefinitely.

  16

  There were still two chapters of The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science remaining to be written, but if Svirsky were planning to eviscerate the book, I had no intention of writing them. Nor, of course, would I return the advance. Nor would I discuss the matter with him and subject myself to the temptation of compromise.

  On March 1, I simply started another book altogether, Words from the Myths. It was my intention to retell the Greek myths and point out that many English words were obtained from or were reminiscent of one or another aspect of those myths.93

  The writing of Words from the Myths was perfect balm for my wounded spirit. It was forty thousand words long and took just twelve days to do.

  It was the first book I wrote without any preliminary discussion with any editor. I was getting confident enough of my ability to assume that some publisher or other was bound to want any book I cared to write.

  On March 14, 1960, I took it in to Austin Olney, since it was he who had done Words in Science, and this new book could be viewed as a companion piece. There was no trouble at all. He liked it, asked for a few very minor changes, and then I got my contract.

  17

  On March 11, just as I was completing Words from the Myths, I received a call from Svirsky. I had had not a word to say to him since our meeting in New York fifteen days before. Apparently he had come to a decision on his own. He told me he had decided not to cut the book but to publish it in two volumes.

  “Fine,” I said, coldly. “In that case, I will finish the book.”

  There was a distinct gasp from his end of the line. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” I said, “that if you had persisted in your intention to cut the book, you would never have gotten a completed manuscript.”

  Once I finished Words from the Myths I therefore got back to The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science.

  18

  I took the children to a local TV children’s show on March 21. I thought it might be an unusual experience for them and that they would like it. It was the “Bozo” show, the chief character of which was Bozo the Clown, who affected not only the usual painted face, but also a huge, bright orange fright wig.

  The children saw the program on television regularly and loved it, but the television set was black-and-white. When Bozo came waltzing in, Robyn, who was sitting among the group of children with whom he intended to interact, took one horrified look at the orange wig and broke and ran to me in absolute terror.

  In later years, Robyn remembered the incident well but could not bear to be kidded about it. She invariably grew defensive and tried to explain her reactions to that monstrous head of hair.

  19

  I was finally finishing up the definition cards for Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, on which I had been working, on and off, for two years. It was just one of a number of little miscellaneous jobs that constantly plagued me. I would write entries for various encyclopedias, for instance. I did a whole series on the various elements for Grolier’s Encyclopedia, a number of miscellaneous articles for Encyclopedia Americana, and so on. There was also the ongoing bimonthly column of reviews for Hornbook.

  These little jobs were never as pleasurable as books or stories, since they were so restrictive. They were invariably closely bounded as to subject matter and length and, for that matter, deadline.

  I might have routinely refused all such tasks, but they had their usefulness, too. They managed to force me into what might otherwise have been neglected byways of knowledge, which I could then incorporate into my various books.

  Nothing goes really to waste, if you’re determined to learn.

  I had already learned, for instance, that although I was one of the most overeducated people I knew, I couldn’t possibly write the variety of books I manage to do out of the knowledge I had gained in school alone. I had to keep a program of self-education in process.

  In my F & SF articles, for instance, I went to great pains to deal with a variety of subjects, and I had to read up on them first. In the case of books such as The Living River or The Wellsprings of Life I had to do a great deal of reading. Some of the chapters of The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science forced me to deal with subject matters concerning which I knew remarkably little. My library of reference books grew and I found I had to sweat over them in my constant fear that I might misunderstand a point that to someone knowledgeable in the subject would be a ludicrously simple one.

  Sometimes I really do make an egregious error, and I can always count on letters from my readers to correct me.

  20

  By now my writing had become so visibly prolific and various that I had to field endless questions from curious onlookers who began to view me as some kind of incredible phenomenon who must do it all by means of minors or prestidigitation.

  They would ask me, for instance, whether I did not have to work on more than one project at a time in order to get all my writing done.

  I always say, “Yes, I do, but only one thing at any one time.” In other words, I’m not typing one book with one hand and another book with another and dictating a third all at the same time, as some of the curious seem to think I do.

  Then they ask, “Do you switch from one to another?”

  “At will,” I say.

  “What if you get a writer’s block?” (That’s a favorite question.)

  I say, “I don’t ever get one precisely because I switch from one task to another at will. If I’m tired of one project, I just switch to something else which, at that moment, interests me more.”

  (Of course, there are times when a deadline interferes and forces me to work on some particular item even when I’d rather not. In that case, I bring myself to do it by promising myself to work on something particularly juicy as soon as I finish.)

  Another question I’m frequently asked is, “How do you keep your different projects straight?”

  I can’t answer that one. All I know is that what I do is the equivalent of taking one record off in my mind and putting another record on; or perhaps of lifting the needle out of one groove and putting it in another. Those, however, are just metaphors. What I really do, I haven’t any idea.

  And that brings up the question: “When you turn to a project you may not have been working on for a considerable time, do you forget what you’ve written or what you intend to say?”