Cat in the Heat; Author not Beat

It's been a blistering few days, with the mint leaves frying in the hot sun, the plant dead in the pot. Yes, that is how hot it has been. Poor Kitty O. He wants to roam the great outdoors, he wants to lie under the shade of the pomegranate tree, he wants to nestle next to the tomato plants. And so he meows to be let out. He does not let the elements dictate his moves. He must have some inner mechanism that allows him to deal with the heat. I know that dogs hang their tongues out; Kitty O is too private to share such information with me.
But I do marvel at him. I can hide out from the heat by turning on the AC. It is more difficult to hide out from the heat of the agent, the editor, the readers. It's when I hear not so nice things about my novel that I find myself almost catatonic. One reviewer of "The Girl Who Went Missing" wrote that he could not put down the book but that it wasn't very good. I usually can't put down a good book. I pondered his comment for days and days, in a daze.
But -- back to the heat of the moment and the heat of the comments that swirl around me. I need, yet again, to learn from Kitty O to go with the flow, to step into whatever is out there and keep walking.
So today, while Kitty O skulks under the lemon tree, I will hunch over my computer, putting the finishing touches to my second mystery, "While the Children Slept."