Some helpful advice from Mad-dog Maguire
Soon I am to find out if my bracing style of Blog writing has paid off: Will Idle Tom the Publisher give me a second book deal?
Some readers have commented on the abrasive style of the blog, in so far as Idle Tom frequently gets it in the back of the neck. Some, like Mad-dog Maguire, think I should be “easing up a little”.
“God’s teeth, Bill!” said Mad-dog [That is genuinely how he talks, I assure you]. “You’re pillorying the blighter! He is your publisher, and you would be better advised to -”
“To what?”
“Start sucking up to him a bit more. A little sycophancy can go a long way.”
“I think he likes it though. I think he takes it all in the cheery manner in which it is doled out.”
“Rather high risk, old boy,” said Mad-dog, whose head, incidentally, is entirely sans hair and looks exactly like a large white Easter Egg. “Dash it, Bill, he could pull the plug on The Well-Tempered Clavier before that little puppy’s even had a chance to fly -”
“And that’s not the only thing he can do.”
“Tell me everything, and quick about it.”
“Idle Tom is currently perusing the first chunk of my next manuscript -”
“Ah yes, the infamous Project X, for what will probably be the cheekiest book of the entire decade.”
“The very same,” I said. “Well Idle Tom ha$s been looking at it over the Easter weekend.”
“And then he’s going to tell you whether he wants to commission the thing? Really? After you’ve been trashing every week for the past five months?”
“As I say, Mad-dog, I think he likes it …”