It’s dawning on me that this is my first novel, and all my years as an editor in the business mean more or less nada, and more on the less.  No one is going to pick up the book because they know I’m an editor, unless they are indulging a morbid curiosity to see if an editor can actually write.  Considering all the manuscripts I’ve rejected over the years I suppose there’s the faint hope all those spurned writers will buy copies to burn in protest, but that’s maybe a few thousand at most.  Sure, add in all the failed relationships and the number spikes, but alas, I don’t think I can build a career solely on the antipathy of others.  It’s going to come down to the story, as it should.   I’ll live and die by the story I write, and nothing else.  All the contacts and insider knowledge is a whole lot of sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing.  Sounds about right.