An editor once told Nabakov that his LOLITA manuscript should be “buried under a large stone.” Now that editor is buried under a stone and LOLITA still titillates readers around the world. An editor once told F. Scott Fitzgerald, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.” Editors, agents, and publishers tell writers to go away. You don’t go away. It’s that simple.
Remembering that “Wittgenstein’s Mistress” got fifty-four rejections.
