Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

The length of a cubit

I’m building an arc. Math majors and/or biblical scholars, please tell me how long a cubit is. I will not be bringing any animals, except for Marie’s two cats. They are both males and fixed, so it’s not part of a plan to populate the world with cats. That would, however be a good scifi movie – Planet of the Cats. Charlton Heston yelling “get your paws off of me you damn furry kittens!” It would sell to the SciFi crowd and folks who think cats are really cute.

It’s still raining, which makes the days go by faster. When I can’t leave the house and I spend all of my time eating, sleeping, or watching TV, it only takes about 6 or 7 hours for a day to pass. I’m not writing right now – I have completely run out of steam on Rumored to Exist. I think I will go back to Summer Rain this weekend, and maybe get the last third close to done by the time I leave for NY for good in March. The difference between the rain in that book and the rain here is that in Indiana, it would pour rain, and then instantly become sunny. I’m pretty sick of the rain now, but if the sun came out in a split-second, I would run around on the wet pavement and smell the earthworms and thunderstorm ozone, and enjoy it more than this 40 days/40 nights shit.

Although I get more positive comments about Rumored, working on Summer Rain is ultimately more satisfying. I can write more per night on SR, especially when I get caught up in dialogue that works well. I can take things slow, and carve out scenes with a lot more visual impact. I also like to build up the characters more. Rumored is fun, but it’s very hit or miss, like writing copy for a newspaper instead of actual prose. But, more people enjoy reading it, and I enjoy reading it, and it will probably manage to sell someday, while Summer Rain will never really be finished. The only distribution methods I see are printing a hundred copies and giving them to my friends, or someone finding the ms long after I’m dead, and publishing it posthumously. Oh well, it’s fun anyway.

I thought about describing this company meeting I attended yesterday, but then I realized there there wasn’t much going on there. It was at the Moore Theatre, where me and Bill Perry saw Henry Rollins perform spoken word on his birthday, 2-13-96. Rollins spoke for so fucking long – it was great, but my bladder was exploding during the third hour. I ran to the bathroom, and it was the worst torture of North American plumbing – the trough. Luckily, this time there was no trough – they removed it and installed a bunch of stalls. After the meeting, there was a bunch of beer and food, and the line for food was very long while the line for beer was negligible. So, I started drinking right away on an empty stomach – hey, it’s free. I didn’t do anything stupid, except not cash in on the free food, and after they bussed us back to the office, I had to sit around for a few hours playing on the web and sobering up.

I’m more into this reuben sandwich than writing, so I better split.