I was supposed to be done with my book today, based on my anal-retentive schedule I made a couple of months ago. Instead, it looks like it will be completed by the end of the week. As my friend Whitney Terrell said a long time ago, "The changes you will make at this point will not change an agent's decision to take on your book." They'll either like it or not.

My plan is to send out query letters along with the first 60 pages. Seems logical. It's not like they will throw out the query letter just because I enclosed some of the work.

So my plan is to get the query letter and the sample out beginning Monday. I have had feedback from 6 or 7 people who have said they will pass it on to their agents. That's great news. A friend of a friend may be the way to get this thing published.

Next I will tell you the story of how I found a biologist to help me work raw milk into my book earlier than previously planned.

According to a new study, 86% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs. In fact the average job satisfaction rate has not dropped below 82% since the study started in 1972. So how does a story's headline to an article describing the study read? "American Workforce Surprisingly Satisfied."

Nothing about the results are actually that surprising. Perhaps it's the headline-writer who isn't satisfied. No wonder. Think about how thankless the job must be? You do your work right and no one notices. Do they give out a Pulitzer for excellence in headline crafting? I think not.

And when you do it wrong, everyone notices. Here's an example: "Clinton, Edwards butt heads."

I'll bet the world's headline-writers fall in the 4% who are extremely dissatisfied with their jobs. Maybe even worse than coal miners or honey wagon drivers.

Progress Report: With all of the first day of school events this week, I was still able to get some writing time in. I am crossing the 100 page mark on draft 3. Right on schedule for the mid September completion date.

At this point I have four people with agent contacts who have expressed an interest in passing my stuff on. This is great news. I won't have to go in completely cold, at least to these agents.

I'm working up my query letter.
I will post portions of it as I get it finalized so you can see how I'm approaching the selling of the book. It's kind of a tough sell, because while it takes place in a college town, I would not really call it an academic novel like Straight Man, Moo, or Wonder Boys. For one thing it is completely from the student's perspective, rather than the professors' point of view. It shares a setting with Moo, but without the midwestern mocking.

I am confident that if I can get the right agent just to read the thing then I have a good chance. It's possible some will dismiss it out of hand because the academic novel is viewed as trite. That would suck.

Enough navel-gazing for today. Sweaty lint. Eww.

I just ran through the whole book over the past three days, marking it up, figuring out what had to get fixed. I was pleasantly surprised that pages 100-267 were not in as bad of shape as I thought they were going to be.

I put my anal-retentive scheduling skills in high gear, and it looks like the whole shebang will be done and ready to go out to potential agents by September 12th.

I really feel some momentum now, and and urgency to get the thing out. The subject of raw milk and cheese made form raw milk is getting some press. I need to get the damn thing out.

So I have begun the daunting task of reading through my second draft as a whole. Right now it's 267 pages. From some editing I did recently, I am guessing I can cut out about 30 pages on my next draft, but I will probably add back in about 20.

The main thing I asked when writing the second draft was, "Do I have the right people in the room for each of these scenes?" This time I will finesse it by asking, "Do I have them in the right frame of mind?" That might involve cutting entire scenes.

I will then go back through and do some heavy editing, giving it the ol' Strunk and White Treatment. Mainly, I'll remove unnecessary words. I did that kind of edit on Chapter 8 and cut out an entire page out of 13. That's not bad.