#b. patrick lonberg

[lonbergwrites]

Tumblr

So I am trying to make a go of Tumblr, and it is very slow going...

I get the blog aspect. I’ve never before done a blog, so there is already a learning curve here... but the social aspect of Tumblr confounds me. It seems like a giant yawning mouth that is constantly streaming on the one end, and it seems impossible to gain an audience for myself on the other.

I’ve been doing Facebook for ages, so by now I obviously get that platform (though as a note here, while I have made a Facebook author’s page for myself, I have far less of an idea of what to do with it at this point than I do with my Tumblr). I started Twitter in September, the same time I started Tumblr, and that has taken off for me. As of right now I have almost 1400 followers and interact regularly with people. But I haven’t really hit my stride with Tumblr.

Maybe that isn’t what Tumblr is, I don’t know. I’m grateful for it as a blog and as a website platform. I just wish I understood how to use the social networking functions. Wil Wheaton and Neal Gaiman make it look so incredibly easy (and it boggles my mind how much time Wil in particular must spend on the platform - if you’re not following him, you really should be).

So if anybody has any advice - if you’re reading this - please leave me a comment, or send me a message on Twitter, as I fully understand how that functionality operates.

~BPL

[lonbergwrites]

Milestone Achieved: Multiple Submissions

This afternoon I submitted my second short story. The first has been out there for a couple of months now.

I know that everybody tells you that getting rejections is a part of being a published author. Well, that’s a check in my author column.

I am adding a second check mark today: having multiple short stories out for submission at the same time. I’m proud to say I have my second “finished” short story out there in the world now.

I’m chugging along on another work in progress, and I feel like it has great potential. Hopefully in another month or two I’ll be ready to introduce it to the publishing world as well.

~BPL

[lonbergwrites]

2019 in Books

This year I’ve consumed 106 books - my new record by far!

(33 paper/ebook & 73 audiobook)

Here are my top ten books read in 2019:

1) The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

2) Bunny – Mona Awad

3) The Broken Earth [Trilogy] – N.K. Jemisin

4) Same Same – Peter Mendelsund

5) The Hidden Light Of Northern Fires – Daren Wang

6) My Year Of Rest And Relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh

7) Gold Fame Citrus – Claire Vaye Watkins

8) The Huntress – Kate Quinn

9) The Dog Stars – Peter Heller

10) The Bees – Laline Paull

Honorable Mentions:

Dear Fahrenheit 451 – Annie Spence

(I don’t think I’ve ever had a book influence my reading as much as this quirky collections of letters that a librarian wrote to some of her favorite books has – of the 237 books she mentioned I’d previously read 9 – this year I read an additional 9 books, a short story, and have added at least 8 other books to my huge queue – two books from my top ten list came into my life because of this book: Gold Fame Citrus -and- The Dog Stars)

 Wayfarers [Series] – Becky Chambers

(These three books are so very needed today – they are the most positive, inclusive, heart-warming sci-fi going right now – I am not sure how well they are going to age, because they are so of our current moment in terms of sex/gender/race politics, but they have won my heart, and made for some of the most enjoyable reading I did in 2019 – I am so thrilled at the gossip floating around that there just might be a new book coming to the series soon!)

 Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time – Marcus J. Borg

(I’m not comfortable calling myself Christian because of the cultural appropriation and warping of Christianity by the far right – this book and its look at the Historical Jesus has started a process of healing for that part of my identity)

 Between The World And Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

(My journey to understand and fight against racism is continually developing, and this book was a watershed for me in so many ways – especially now that I have a son, and think about what it is I will need to convey to him about the world when he’s fifteen)

[lonbergwrites]

I have finally made some progress on my most recent work in progress. It is called: I Prefer Men To Cauliflowers. In tone it is a combination of Virginia Woolf and J. Ryan Stradal, with a dose of magical realism mixed in. It is a love triangle between an organic farmer and her husband, and the big city female chef she falls in love with. And there is a magic paring knife that I haven’t fully sussed out yet. It is all very Minnesotan, and it is once again making me very happy after a very unwitting stoppage that I broke through this evening.

[lonbergwrites]

Does anybody consume the same media anymore?

I am not one of those people that laments the days of the 3 television stations. Sure, I think there is some value to having a lot of people be “in” on the same television shows. I have a regular friend night every week where a buddy and I watch a TV show (new Star Trek, when available) and drink a growler of beer. We have a shared experience of a show, and that does indeed build our friendship. But I don’t need this with your average Joe on the street.

But I feel very cognizant of the fact that practically nobody I work with in my day job as a brewer shares any - and I do mean any - cultural touchstones with me. We don’t watch the same shows. We don’t read the same books. Most of them don’t share a lot of my values when it comes to civics or religion or travel or cuisine or XXXX (as is my fill-in when I’m writing and need to have a blank area to come back to and fill in later so as not to kill my momentum in the moment of inspiration).

Where I am right now, in that part of my life, is so divorced from my own self that I struggle to connect with the people with whom I spend a huge chunk of my life. There is something lost when we don’t share much culturally with our neighbors and coworkers.

One of the greatest things happening today is the broad and deep list of offerings from TV and books and a myriad of other offerings. I just wish that more people watched what I liked. That said, to quote Niles Crane, “Popularity is the Hallmark of mediocrity. Well, maybe then I wish that I had more time to consume more (and still create my own works)...

I’m glad there is more for us out there than we could ever hope to consume in several lifetimes. I just wish I had more in common with those around me sometimes.

~BPL

[lonbergwrites]

Book Length

I have always considered myself a fan of the tome. Big books forever and ever, I said. Well, maybe...

I know that tastes change over time. And reading so much more in the last few years really has brought me around to a different point of view. You might have read in my previous posts that I used to hate short stories. My thinking was: why invest the time to read the story if you’re done just minutes later? I can see now where the problem is in that thinking.

When was the last time that a friend disappointed you? It was probably relatively recently, no? And were they forgiven?

I have realized something about myself in the last year or so. I both love and hate people generally. I love people writ-large. People I’ve never met I care about - do on to others and all that. People deserve rights and love and a chance... I love people.

Zoom the lens in a little and I generally hate people. Have I interacted with you in the restaurants, bar, and hotels I’ve worked in? Schools I’ve attended? I probably - more likely than not - hate you. If I don’t know you that well, you probably annoy me because I know just enough, but haven’t gotten to know more, and when you do things that annoy me, I never want to see you again. To know you just a little is probably to hate you.

Zoom in even closer - introvert that I am, I’ve let you in - and I have a lot of grace to offer you. I know you. I know you’re a good person, and mean well, and generally do good. I can turn the other cheek pretty easily, because life isn’t perfect, and neither are you (nor I).

I can forgive the tome in a way that I cannot your general 80-100k word novel. I’ve lived (maybe over-)long with this work, and I know its faults, sure, but I also know every lovely nook and cranny and all of the good it has done me before. I wrongly extended this metaphor in my assumption that I hated short stories.

Well, I don’t really. Short stories are kind of like those people you never really get to know - those crushes that remain perfect for their ephemeral perfection, as opposed to those short relationships that can only suffer for their solid betrayals and not enough longevity. As opposed to the grand romances which, while they might end, are more beautiful and complete for their depth and breadth.

So I’ve fallen in love with short stories. Novelettes and novellas too - as these are just long short stories that are taught and are as unknown and perfect as they are not drawn out and yet incomplete. I have still yet to truly fall in love with a moderate-sized novel in the way that I do shorter works or doorstops.

But - as any good reader - I’m only just getting started with my reading, so I’m sure I will find my love for this last blind spot, too. Back to it.

~BPL

[lonbergwrites]

Celebrity Authors

For a couple of years I worked as a chef in what were considered to be hip restaurants in Manhattan. It was a usual part of my day to cook food for celebrities you'd see on TV, in the movies, playing pro sports, singing at a packed stadium, or running the government.

A lot changes when you leave NYC, a lot of it is good, but I've never really gotten over all of these celebrity sightings. There is really nothing like it. I'm not a person who swoons or gapes or really cares that much about celebrity generally, but there is just something special about running into somebody in real life that you "know" from something. It is a small thing that adds to the magic of NYC.

In my daily life now I never run into anybody that anybody would know. But I've found something similar with Twitter recently.

I've been on Facebook forever. It is my preferred social media app. I've always poo-pooed Twitter because it is a lot of shouting into the void, which never felt personal to me.

But, now that I'm working diligently on my writing, and taking hold of social media in a whole new way - engaging the writing world - I've discovered the joy of Twitter.

I've connected with some new-to-me writers like J. Ryan Stradal and the genius Mona Awad. I've seen them like my tags. I've interacted with some big people in the writing world like Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace, who through their podcasts have influenced me so greatly. And - and this is a really big deal to me - I've even gotten a shout-out from legendary T.C. Boyle, who is one of my very favorite authors of all time.

Twitter is becoming for me that little taste of the famous that I've been missing since leaving NYC. It is a welcome thing. Sure, I'm in no hurry to connect with anybody I actually know irl on Twitter, but Twitter has a place in my new writing-centric presence on the interwebs.

~BPL