I used to be one of those people who got really pumped bitching about how young people think they're special because they spent their childhoods getting trophies for doing unexceptional things. Recently, I've come to realize I'm one of those self-supposing special people. I guess it's true that people tend to pick out the bad things in other that they see in themselves.

No matter how often I heard about how tough it is to get a book deal, there has been some tiny part of my brain that was sure I'd get one quickly - that my manuscript would be so unbelievably universe-shaking and thought-provoking that, within of week, I'd have a line of agents, contracts in hand, salivating outside my door. 

Clearly, that hasn't happened. Granted, I've only shipped out nine queries, one third of which came back with rejections.

Maybe we all want to be exceptional, above the norm. But I am just like every other author trying to land an agent. And that's a wake-up call I suppose I needed.