Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Hello again

So I was walking through the rain today in Times Square, going to the American Express office at 47th and Avenue of the Americas to give them $1200 before they sent in the dogs on me, and I thought about everything that’s happened to me in the last eight months since I last did this journal. I got a job, I had a minor breakdown and started therapy again, I moved to Astoria, and just last weekend, I split up with Marie. Now I’m alone in a big city, buried in work, and trying to edit my first book for publication this summer. What better time than to start an online journal, right?

Where to start… okay, there’s the job. I’m working as a technical writer for a large ISP, one of the largest. I guess they’ll remain nameless, just to keep a solid line between work and play. It’s the same kind of stuff I did in Seattle, but I have a little more power, a little more money, and a lot more fun. I’m glad I have a job. It’s solved some of the problems from last summer, of not knowing what to do and having no interaction with anybody. Right now, this job’s one of the only reasons I’m still in New York. And stability can be a good thing.

The book – Summer Rain. It’s my big epic about the summer of 1992 in Bloomington, and it’s going to be published somewhere around the end of the summer. I’m in a frenzy of editing and corrections, which should probably finish by the end of May. It’s going to really be published, and I hope all of you go to Amazon or Borders or whatever and buy a copy. I don’t ask for many favors…

I moved to Astoria in December. I’ve got a cozy one-bedroom with a new TV, a new leather couch, a new DVD player, a new bed, my bookshelves filled with books, and a 384/128Kbps DSL connection to the outside world. I’m a half-hour on the N train from work and central Manhattan, and the neighborhood here isn’t too bad. I still miss my apartment in Seattle, but I’m starting to settle into this place.

I guess that’s it for now. I need to get back to work on the book…