The usual path to publication

"As you will see in these essays, however, a writer is vastly more likely to follow a complex, switch-backing trail than a straightforward path, one strewn with the boulders of rejection letters, the quicksand of endless revisions, and the snake pits of publishing house reorganizations, business failures, and would-be scammers. To the right is the sheer cliff of despair; to the left, the impassible mountain of the slush pile"--Amazon