Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Hilbilly ISPs

I got a late start, but managed to pull in a few hours of writing last night. I’m trying to keep going on Rumored to Exist, but I keep hitting slow spots. I finally edged over 60,000 words last night. Every time I get close, I delete a bunch of dead stuff, and slip back a ways. I’m almost out of old stuff to delete, so there shouldn’t be much more slippage. I’m still hoping to finish this piece of shit by the end of August or so.

Since I’m still reading WSB’s The Soft Machine, and it requires extreme attention, I don’t have any current lack-of-attention reading. So, I started reading random snippets of Ted Morgan’s Literary Outlaw, a damn fine biography on Burroughs’ life. Although I have no intention of ending up in a common-law marriage with a benzedrine addict and then shooting her in the head, there are other areas of his life that I wish I could live. I wish I could pack up and go to Vienna for medical school, or spend a few years hiding in Mexico City. It takes money to live free.

I called my friend Larry last night. He’s the one in law school in Chicago, living in his grandpa’s basement. He found some kind of clerk job with a medical firm, where he looks up stuff on a computer all day. He actually gets paid for this internship, unlike 99% of the ones out there for law students. He laid some plan on me about moving to California next year, because he’d be eligible to take the bar without finishing his degree. I think Larry should move to Mexico and become a lawyer, because their brand of justice is more his style. Nothing against Lar, it’s just he would fit in better in a place where bribery is required and everything is rough and tumble, as opposed to the polished yet under the table crap in the US court system. I don’t know, maybe I’ve seen too many Mexican westerns.

My friend Ray switched ISPs for the 27th time in the last 3 years. He keeps subscribing to these piece of shit, hilbilly ISPs that are like $10/month and then he wonders why they don’t work.

I’m still asleep, so I should stop writing.

06/25/98 22:57

I planned on an early start to the writing, but I fell asleep. Now it’s 11pm, and I’m just now starting my dinner. I also had a pretty uneventful day, so I’m going to call it a wash, get to my turkey pot pie, and write more tomorrow.