Bill Kerwin's Blog: Big Sleep City News

Do you shut-ins need something to read during our new "Home Alone" phase? Take advantage of my new Countdown Deal from Kindle! Start on Monday March 16th, my novel "Big Sleep Boogie"--usually $2.99--will go on sale: $.99 until March 19th, $1.99 until March 23rd. Happy reading for all!

I'd like to thank all my friends for the recent upsurge in sales of my novel "Big Sleep Boogie." It is pleasant for me to think of all my friends--Larry's fans, FGNM and BluesSwing fans, Cavaliers, Wolverines, Stallions, Goodreads fans--curled up in front of a yule log (real or faux), sipping a favorite adult beverage, and reading of the strange doings in Big Sleep City.Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good read!

Revision week in Big Sleep City. I love revision. When I'm done, the guy who wrote the rough draft seems smarter, wittier than before.

A third of the way through the first draft of Big Sleep Blues I've gotten stuck. It's as if, after hacking my way through the underbrush, after reaching an overlook and making my camp, I can glimpse a mist-shrouded valley below, but can discover no way to descend. What to do? Come morning, I'll backtrack, and clear a better path to the lookout, making it easier for those who will some day follow after. Perhaps,when I return, the mist will have cleared, and I can see the way forward. (In other words: time to revise.)

After a month, they begin to appear: the names I do not know. The people who--on Goodreads or Amazon--have liked and rated my book, but are not my friends, nor the friends of friends, nor fellow barflies, nor former colleagues, nor students from Wehrle or DeSales. Oh, Heather Ann, Holly Bostick, Thi Nguyen, what strange journey brought you to Big Sleep City? I want to know ... and yet--somehow--I prefer that you remain a mystery.

Big Sleep Boogie makes an excellent Christmas gift for all my former English students. By reading it, they can determine if the guy who told them how they should write ever learned how to write himself!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM BIG SLEEP CITY! Potluck at Club L. Wine in both colors. Rolling Rock and Aqua Vitae for everybody!

Goodreads ratings can be interesting. For example, I recently received: a four-star from a detective novelist, a four-star from a stranger in Ho Chi Minh City, a five-star from a teacher (a friend of my son), and a one-star from a troll who created an account just so he could wound me on line. So it goes. Just another week in Big Sleep City.

Yesterday I drove by Union Cemetery--the model for Big Sleep Cemetery in my book--and it didn't look right. Too crowded, too few monumental sculptures, too little order in the layout of the trees. In my mind, Big Sleep Cemetery is the real cemetery now.

My first novel, Big Sleep Boogie, was born into the world one month ago. It has begun to sleep through the night now. Dad is beginning to get some rest.