I've noticed I write a lot about keeping the dream alive, protecting the creative well, finding inspiration. Sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse on the subject, but I keep coming back to it, because this is a tough business. It beats you (not the horse) to a bloody pulp and then expects you to get up and do it better, smarter, faster, possibly even perfect. No one else in the publishing equation has to be perfect, just the author. We also have to not mind bad reviews, rejections, edits that don't make sense and revisions that make even less sense. We have to be Super, superlative and always, always polite. We have to take it on the chin turn the other cheek and then turn the other cheek, get up and head back to the computer and be brilliant. For me, the symbol of this whacky business is a letter I got in response to a query to an agent about possibly representing my work. My query letter was as perfect as I could make it. No misspelled words. No hinky layouts. I had a hook, I had credetials interestingly presented it was almost flawless and it got me a yes, I'll take a look from the agent. So why is this one a symbol? Because the "yes" was written on one of those tiny, Post-it notes and stuck to my own letter. And the agent had misspelled "please". The irony of that still makes me smile.