Resuscitating an Old Novel

 

Despite giving away thousands of copies, Running From Herself still only has four text reviews on Amazon (18 total ratings). To be clear, I'm extremely thankful for them.

March 1 marked the book's one-year anniversary, so my novel is as cold as the block of ice above. I ran a KDP free book promotion last month, which kind of fizzled, and I can find no reason to pay to promote it. Thus, I'm on the fence regarding The Storygraph for the reasons I detailed here. Deep down, I know the book's not its clientele's preferred genre, worldview, or storyline; but we know how we authors are---constantly grasping at straws that turn out to be the paper kind that disintegrate before our eyes.

So far this month I've had zero purchases and zero KU pages read. A record! 

I know I keep saying that it's time to move on; start shaping up my old (third) novel for publishing. It would be a shame to waste that nice cover I designed, and the pretty good blurb I came up with, and the much better title. Trouble is, my heart's just not in it. I have a hard time "redoing", because that's boring. So, as you know from my posts, I've found diversions, rather than dig into that horrible first chapter that needs to be completely rewritten, which will lead to the second chapter that isn't much better, which will lead to...

But I do need something other than Running From Herself to flog. And who knows? If I actually start, maybe I'll find the project interesting. I think I need to Google tips on resuscitating a dead manuscript---ways to jazz things up, make an author excited to dig in. Hang on...

Here we go: Apparently, the Frankenstein Method is popular. I haven't studied the article thoroughly, but it does appear to tout dissecting the whole body, and frankly, I'm rather squeamish. It does make sense, though, to not so much employ a scalpel, but a forceps. (I know my medical shows!) I don't want to completely rebuild my monster, just maybe rearrange his parts.

On the plus side, since I've already listened to a playback of the manuscript, I'm now familiar with this old story and I think I know what needs to be either harvested or supplemented. The brother character is kind of a dud, but he's needed, so I'll have to turn him into an actor, instead of a reactor. Give this monster more muscle mass. 

For whatever reason, I'm now picturing my novel as a Peter Boyle performance:

That's not all bad! Peter's monster character is livelier than my novel is in its current iteration!  

So, that's what I've decided to go for: lively

I plan to start livening it up any day now...