Project X - the latest hot news!
Apologies for the lack of communication these past three weeks. Stuff going on. Kids’ half-term. I’m sure you know how it is for us struggling writers.
Anyway! What do I care? I have much, much news to report about Project X - the book project, that is, that was finished about two months ago, and for which Idle Tom the Publisher has paid the biggest advance in Legend Press history, and which is supposedly "due out" next spring.
Now, a month or so back, I think I might have joked that Idle Tom wouldn’t get round to reading the manuscript till Christmas. I guess I thought he might take three weeks. Tops.
As it turns out, I’d be ASTONISHED if he got round to reading the thing by 2009.
"You know how it is, Old Cock," he says to me. (Why, by the way, does he insist on calling me "Old Cock"? Does he call all of his writers "Old Cock"? Is it me?). "We’ve had the place burgled. Lost all the computers."
"Yeah," I said, trying to sound mildly solicitous. "You told me that a month ago."
"Did I?"
"Yes, you did. So how can I be of help, Tom?"
"Ummm. You could send the manuscript over again, that’d be great."
"The manuscript?! I sent it to you two months ago - and I sent it again when you were burgled!"
"Yeahhhh," he says. "Well we ain’t got it, and, you know …"
"OK. This is becoming a bit of a theme for you, Tom. So you want the manuscript again for Project X?"
"Yeahhh. That would be cool."
"And when do you think you’ll get round to reading this thing? Just so long as it’s not been "burgled" again?"
"Ooooh. Soon. Definitely. Some time soon. Definitely sooner rather than later, old cock -"
"Do you have to call me "Old cock"?"
"Don’t you like it?"