Rejection is the rule in scholarly publication, not the exception... (p. 141)

But, don't look so depressed!  The typical proverb "Publish or Perish" is turned around with John M. Moxley's 1992 book PUBLISH, Don't Perish.   Recognizing that to play the academic game, we all will need to publish, Moxley, a professor of English and composition, wrote a compact and accessible book about all facets of academic writing, from overcoming agraphia (though he doesn't use the term), to developing/planning scholarly projects, drafting, writing, revising, and marketing your ideas.  In addition, he provides some basic guidelines for the differences between various academic genres such as quantitative and qualitative work, book reviews and grant writing. 

Although the books is a little dated in its technical approach (using snail mail and basic computer use), the foundations of his advice is spot-on.  In addition, since it is an older title, you can access the full text here: ScholarPublish.   Moxley also provides good resources and additional readings.

Writing is Writing

Robert J. Nash has an interesting book Liberating Scholarly Writing: The Power of Personal Narrative.  In this book, he makes the case that personal narrative writing can be scholarly and rigorous and allow the author to tell the story of their life/understanding in a manner that traditional objective, academic styles cannot.  He provides some general guidelines, highlights some of the best master and doctoral theses from his own experiences, and gives some advise on how to deal with the difficulties of challenging traditional academic writing.

He recounts listening to a panel of African-American writers on C-Span and one writer said, "Reflection is not writing. Research is not writing. Note taking is not writing.  Talking about writing is not writing. Planning for writing is not writing.  Writing is writing.  Hear me say this again: Writing is writing." (page 156).