Most of us are probably going to achieve an average amount of success

As writers, we all have a perception that we’re out of the ordinary, because we're aware of the number of people who failed to measure up. For instance, during my application year 97.5% of the people who applied to Hopkins were rejected, and I’ve been published in magazines that reject 199 out of every 200 submissions.

So we tend to think, “Oh, I am in t…