Four and twenty blackbirds

Some things really set the mood for the day and today it was Andy Murray's grand slam win. All you Scottish blippers must be proud of your man today. Of course in England Scots are always British when they're winning - until they lose.

Boredom warning: A bit of a dull rant follows so probably best to cut and run now while you can.

In spite of the Murray win, I've been out of sorts because it's time to try out agents and publishers with my book. Do you know that a manilla envelope for A4 costs 79p? No, the first agents on my list didn't take emails, they said, and they can say what they like. They'd probably prefer it written in quill pen.

It's a good book. You'd like it. I've been doing it long enough to know when a piece of writing works. Gill, my biggest critic has given it the all clear too. But, of course, you can shout it from the rooftops and it doesn't do any good. You have to get read and reading takes time.

The problem is that writers are the bad smells that spoil a publisher's lunch. Writers - often with some justification - are seen as difficult, awkward and unrealistic: people who have no understanding that publishing is a business that relies on sales and profits for its survival. The other problem is that anyone can write just as anyone can take a photograph - except they can't. There's a lot of rubbish writing just as there's a lot of rubbish photography. And there's writing and photography that looks OK. But it has to be better than OK. On the face of it, there are no barriers to entry. In reality the barriers are enormous. The worst of it is that connections are everything. I got a fantastic deal on my first book because a respected author liked the idea and told a publishing editor, then word got round and lots of people wanted it. Then some pulled out and others pitched in, and that's how it went.

It got great reviews too but didn't sell as well as the publisher had hoped, partly because its distribution was terrible and bookshops didn't know where to put the book.

The writing in a book is rather like the meat in a pie. It's butchered, chopped, cooked and seasoned, then cased in a splendid crust. It's not to everyone's taste. But a good pie is to be savoured and the best piemakers know their job. They won't take the meat from any herd but want the healthiest beasts from reliable stock. In that respect book publishing is just like making pies. Reading this back, publishing is nothing like making pies, but it is expensive and it's a risk. Publisher's think they know what will sell but they don't and when something does sell they all want a piece of the action. That's why the shelves just now are full of fifty shades of grey porno writing.

As for the blip pic, the ducks and swans today were uninspiring. Why does anyone eat white bread when you see what it does to a duck's coat? So I settled for some lakeside grass as the sun peeped out briefly from under its covers, then went back to bed.