The Thorny Lives of Debut Authors

I aspire to be traditionally published. That is not meant as a slight toward writers who self-publish. All of us have to walk our own path and I've decided mine leads toward the more traditional route of write a book/get an agent/get a book deal.
 
As such, I'm still in the 'write a book' phase. Morphing from mostly a writer of short stories to novels has been a challenge for me.* However, I feel I'm making good progress and I look forward to the day I can start querying agents. To help me prepare, I've been following some debut novelists and some of what I've read recently scares me a bit.
 

I imagine this must be how it feels to be
buried under a lot of rewrites requested
by either your agent or editor. How can
a debut author even conceive of saying
no after all the hard work to get this far? 

For J. Kathleen Cheney, 2013 was her launch year. Her many blogs posts about the constant editing and re-editing gave me great consternation. I question my ability to survive such frequent rewrites. 
 
Once her novel hit bookstore shelves, it sounds as if the event was not as joyous as she had hoped. I admit I cringed a little when I read her 2013 summary. (I won't even discuss the link embedded in the post. That author's journey depressed me so badly I couldn't finish reading it.)

Then, there's my good friend Arianne 'Tex' Thompson. I can confidently say I've never met a more gregarious and giving person. When she sold her first novel I was almost as excited as she was. Now that I've read her year-end post I must admit I'm more than a little saddened. 2014 should be an exciting year as she looks forward to the publication of her fist novel. Instead, it sounds as if it will be more of a burden.

I suppose I'm being naïve to believe life is all happiness once a writer gets past the "get an agent/get a book deal" phases. Why would I expect the process to be any easier? No matter the path taken - traditional or self-publishing - the route appears to be littered with thorns. 

Please, someone give me some good news about being a debut author. There have to be some positive points, too!  

        
 
*A fellow author at DFWWW commented recently that he wrote two novels and one short story in 2013. He said the short story gave him hell. I had to laugh since it's just the opposite for me. My brain operates in short-story mode. How to plot and pace a novel still baffles me a bit.