After a week of letting my second draft rest, I will embark on a month of intensive editing. No more than one month. I could keep tweaking and messing with it, but as my writing professor Whitney Terrell says, "The changes you will make won't make the difference whether or not you get an agent."

My goal is to have it sent out by the time classes start up at UMKC. I only have one class left for my M.A., so the schedule is light.

When I first would describe the premise of my novel, I used to say this:

It's the story of a guy who decides to reinvent his life when he learns his wife is having an affair the same day the Big 6 accounting firm that employs him implodes due to some illegal tax shelters they set up. He decides to follow his dream to become a writer so he moves to Manhattan... Kansas, where his idol teaches writing. There he uses the skills he honed in business to succeed in the political atmosphere of Kansas State.

Universally, this was hated by those who had read the first part of my book. They, rightfully, said it was boring and did not describe any of the odd or funny qualities of the writing.

So lately I've been describing it this way.

Krauthammer 2.0
It's the story of a guy who decides to reinvent his life when he learns his wife is having an affair the same day the Big 6 accounting firm that employs him implodes due to some illegal tax shelters they set up. He moves to Manhattan, Kansas, where he begins to write about some of the odd things he encounters there, like an underground dairy that sells unpasteurized milk and a plot to derail trains carrying baby formula to third world countries.

But the problem here is that people think I have veered from the real plot and am making some kind of a joke.

Here is how I think I will describe it now.

Krauthammer 2.0
This is a comedic novel about Carl Krauthammer, a 38-year-old man who decides to drop everything and move to Manahattan, Kansas. His move uncovers the town's secrets, including an underground dairy that sells unpasteurized milk, a militant wing of La Leche League, and the reason why one of Carl's favorite writers has lost his mojo.

Would this description make you want to read the book? Give me your comments.

So now I have finished the second draft of my novel, Krauthammer 2.0.

The last 124 pages were not easy, but it now is complete. I now embark on a month of intense editing of entire piece. I'm kind of anxious to read the whole thing in one sitting.

The first draft really didn't make any sense, as I made changes throughout without ever going back and fixing problems at the beginning. This draft I basically rewrote the first 1/3, edited severely the last two thirds. I am so glad I'm done, though, because the final scenes really pinpoint the theme of the book, something that I strayed from a little in the middle. I hope to have the whole thing done here in a month or so, before Fall classes start up at UMKC, where I'm pursuing my M.A. in English, Creative Writing: Fiction.

Next time I will tell you of my struggles getting a short elevator-ride deription of what the book is about.

Check out this picture of a woman enjoying her chocolate. It's from this article. Isn't it kind of disturbing? Is she even wearing clothes?

I used to work at KMBC-TV many years ago, writing short commercials for the evening newscast. Most of what I did promoted the news for later in the day during which the spot aired. A reporter of news anchor would read my copy live. Most days I wrote four or five of these, and spent the rest of my time working on longer-term projects like promoting news series, which were stories that would stretch over two or three nights to keep viewers hooked. They don't do those kinds of stories anymore, preferring to focus on investigative stories and consumer protection stuff.

I'm sure you've seen the 30-second commercials that air right after your favorite 9:00 pm show finishes. They're called "teases," and usually involve the anchor talking about what stories are coming up next. The producer of the newscast writes these, since the promotion people work normal business hours and the producers have to work crazy schedules to get the newscast written and on the air. Last night on WDAF in Kansas City, they had one of these spots that came on right after the conclusion of 24.

The anchor said, "Two area men duke it out with swords." Duke it out with swords? That's just bad copy. Not only did the person employ a cliche, but he or she used it improperly. All right, no biggie, right. A petty complaint. But then it got worse. Then the newscast started and the anchor said, "An area man was attacked, but it's what he was attacked by that has people talking tonight." Well, we already know what he was attacked by, another area man. He was not attacked by a sword. He was attacked with a sword. How embarrassing for the producer. I sent them an email and asked for the person who wrote that copy so I could ridicule them. I have not yet heard back.