Awards, Novels and Itching

First of all, many thanks to the rotten correspondent for her award of Creative Blogger. I am extremely honoured and grateful; very ego boosting start to the week.
I will pass this on to other bloggers in a day or two when I've had time to have a trawl.

Also many thanks for all those encouraging comments about my meanderings on writing fiction. I would like to clarify that I have not yet had a novel published (god dammit to hell) but one of these days I will. Unfortunately the decision whether to publish a book these days is nowadays down to the Marketing department and has less to do with the writing itself. Yes, I can write (all of us bloggers can do that) but nowadays unless an agent and publisher is convinced that what you write will sell, you’re not going to get published.

So what makes a book sell? Ah, well, there’s the conundrum. No one actually knows. It’s an indefinable thing, like falling in love. It either works or it doesn’t, and until the book’s out there, who knows whether people will want to buy it? There are certain factors which will help or hinder, however:-

Don’t write about cancer (my last boo boo)
Don’t write about people with an age gap (ditto)
Don’t write about the theatre or ballet (yes, another of mine)
Your main (female) character must not be over 40 (another mistake), preferably early to mid thirties -

And so the list goes on, with lots and lots of Dos and Don’ts about plot, characters, conflict etc. which I won’t bore you with. All of the above rules can be broken, of course, but not by me – or not yet. So this time I’ve tried to keep within the rules. I can only keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Keep yours crossed too, would you? My baby is going off in the post today as soon as it’s stopped tipping down.

And many thanks for helpful comments about Mollie’s itching. As it’s on her back, she can’t scratch it with her claws so she hasn’t broken the skin, and a lot of the time it doesn’t bother her, but when it does, she gets very agitated. It’s not her anal glands as she had those done last week (a recurring problem, unfortunately, but one that I have now been shown how to do by the vet). I’ve decided to take her to the vet and made an appointment for tomorrow morning – they’re too busy today. In the meantime I’m off to buy moisturising shampoo and Aloe Vera. Will keep you posted on both babies.