Why?

Now that it is done, now that Dead in His Tracks is having to fight its way in the marketplace, I have begun to question the wisdom of having written it at all. As I have progressed as a writer, as I have gone from thinking of myself as being a comic writer to thinking of myself as being a serious one, I have also come to question whether this project, conceived in humor and dedicated to the proposition that all things are created absurd, was the best jumping off point for my new incarnation.

Conceived, originally, in a spirit of parody, there are elements of the plot that strike me as being too constructed, too manufactured. It seems too mannered to me. It also occurred to me earlier today that it is harder to go from genre novel, in terms of sales, to general fiction than it is the other way around. The people who represent genre authors and the firms that publish their work want different things from a mystery than what I can give them. They cherish and defend the cliches that I wish to subvert.

Given all my feelings about this, Dead in His Tracks will probably become a #1 international bestseller and then a movie--most likely in 3-D--starring some pretty boy who can't act. Or....

And So, To Market

I finished the latest revision of DEAD IN HIS TRACKS this past Monday. I'm now working on the cover letter and that most dreaded of all marketing items, the synopsis.

I had an interesting run at the end of the rewrite of the novel. I went, very suddenly, from slaving over a single chapter for about a month to knocking out two or three chapters a day. Apparently they had gotten less lousy the further on I had gone.

Which is not to say that there were no changes or corrections. I actually added to the final paragraph, so I can quite truthfully claim to have rewritten it from one end to the other.

And now on to trying to sell it in some realistic manner. Wish me luck.