Throughout the majority of my life, academically-inclined pursuits have come to me with relative ease. Picking up new languages was a simple matter of plugging in new sounds to my existing understanding of grammar. Doing well at work was a practice in figuring out the needs of the people around me, and filling in those gaps with a dogged determination. I work hard, and my aim is to please. I live off the fumes from others' feedback: the A's on tests and report cards; the back-slaps from colleagues.

None of this matters anymore. Now, my life has become a harrowing, mind-numbing process of condensing a work that means the world to me, and sending the packaged preview of my opus to someone whose job is to rifle through hundreds of packaged previews each day to find the ones that they can market for a hefty price, and a 15% commission.

The rejections didn't bother me at first. I knew they were coming. I'd read all about some of my favorite authors using form rejections as wallpaper, paper mache-ing them to their garbage cans. I would do that, too, I thought. I'd get my rejections, print them off, and line my unmentionables drawers with them, hang them on the refrigerator. Every day, I'd see them, and every day, I'd laugh my way through them.

Deep down, though, I suspected that soon I'd find my match and they'd ask for a full. In just a few days, that same agent would call me and wax rapturous about how they understood the symbolism in my book, how they loved my characters, and couldn't wait to cut a deal with a publisher - after another series of edits; even in my wildest dreams, I suspected another thorough edit was in my future.

I expected the query process to go much like the rest of my life, smooth and simple. Figure out the equation, plug in the variables. Work, bitch.

As I write this, I am realizing that my memory is faulty. (I'm only 27. What the hell?) I have not always succeeded; I've failed many times. In ninth grade, my math teacher recommended that I take regular math, as my grades weren't good enough for the advanced program. I was incensed, and enrolled in advanced math with a renewed determination to succeed, just to spite the woman who told me I couldn't handle it. Three years later, I finished advanced Calculus with an A- (barely, but still...). In fact, I wrote my college entrance essay about my secret love affair with Calculus, and, according to my college advisor, that essay played a large part in my acceptance. If I'd have accepted my ninth grade teacher's onslaught of cynicism, how would I have learned what I was capable of? (Furthermore, would William and Mary have rejected me?!)

Other examples come to mind, but the specifics aren't important. What is important is that, no matter whether the feedback is positive or negative, I am a worker. If I care about the task at hand, I'll put in whatever it takes to make it happen. The important thing here is not that