I’d like to welcome author M. J. Preston to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!
A few of your favorite things:
I’m a dog owner, I have two beagles, Milo, and Jake, they are my favorite two things. Oh wait? Pizza and nachos are edging toward being my even more favorite two things.
Things you need to throw out:
You know, Jake and Milo aren’t as good as pizza and nachos, and they’re tearing around the house. I better throw them out before an incident occurs.
Hardest thing about being a writer:
Finding time. Time is the something all writers need. How much we can dedicate to our craft is dependent on its availability, so it’s paramount. The march toward the great big morgue slab waits for no one.
Easiest thing about being a writer:
The first draft of anything! Novel, short story It’s that first incoherent drunken half-pitched stumble to the finish line! There is nothing more euphoric than the buzz I get when a story unfolds, it’s like pain free birthing. There is something that happens when I set my mind to writing, I am overtaken by a muse, who is a whispering miserable bastard, but he’s the best in the business for me. I transform when I write, going from “me” to a key-tapping-zombie falling headlong down the rabbit hole. Once I’m there, I have the keys, until the story is told. Then it’s yours.
Words that describe you:
Given my background in the military, I’ve been called a lot of things, but those that are genuine would be: Fun, friendly, supportive, dependable.
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t:
Too trusting, and wears heart on sleeve. Not my heart, mind you. I’d be dead. I generally get a human heart off the black market, also known as Amazon, they’re relatively affordable and they don’t start to decompose for about a week.
Favorite foods:
I love all sorts of food. I think spaghetti has always been my-go-to. I love Italian cuisine, but I really dig a wide variety of foods from Mexican to Chinese. I cook a traditional-bastardized Chicken Chow Mein. It’s a hit around these digs.
Things that make you want to gag:
Mushrooms, I cannot stomach them. Mushrooms literally make me gag. From the first time I tried one in 1972, I rolled that alien gizzard around in my mouth until I could distract the cook and spit it in the garbage. Since that day, I have moved woefully through the culinary world avoiding the fungus that grows in sh!t. Think about the last five words of the sentence you just read. Why would you put that in your mouth?
Favorite music or song:
I’m all over the place in my music these days, in that I could be listening to All them Witches, belting out Alabaster or grooving to the rhythmic beat of Eminem rapping a story about an obsessed fan in, Stan. Music is a very big part of the creation process for me, it is the soundtrack to the story I’m telling. Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, The Black Angels, Johnny Cash, Metallica… I could keep going.
Music that drives you crazy:
Techno music. I’d rather gargle with mule pee laced with light bulb glass, than have that stuff rolling around in my head.
Favorite beverage:
Beer.
Something that gives you a sour face:
Politicians, even after many beers.
Favorite smell:
Cedar.
Something that makes you hold your nose:
Sauerkraut farts, they are the worst. [No more questions about that.]
Something you wish you could do:
Play guitar.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do:
Operating an interstellar, dimensional and time shifting, universe jumper. If I had a nickel for every time, I get a call from this secret society or that, and at all hours of the night, wanting to do a fundraising brunch in the corner of hell. It really interrupts my schedule, but it does pay the bills.
Something you like to do:
Psst. I like writing. 😉
Something you wish you’d never done:
I wish the hell I’d stayed off that grassy knoll. People just won’t let that go.
The last thing you ordered online:
Sanding discs for a drywall sander. [No, the basement isn’t finished yet.]
The last thing you regret buying:
We bought a patio set. I wanted to buy a t-shirt gun, but oh, no. “Mrs. Preston kept mentioning what happened to Ned Flanders wife on The Simpson’s so patio set it was. Ned’s wife was killed by a t-shirt gun. Practicality trumps coolness. Not cool at all.
Things you always put in your books:
I usually include a soldier or a trucker as a character somewhere in my books. I did not realize I did this until I revisited my work years later. This was unconscious, until now, thanks for ruining that by the way.
Things you never put in your books:
Now, this is sort of embarrassing, but I will never put a piece of smoked salmon in a book ever again. After a while it, roughly five minutes, the book begins smell fishy. Also, it leaves an oily stain on the pages which if you’re shipping internationally causes all sorts of grief. Because of the fish, the FDA must be involved, and let me tell you those goose steppers have zero sense of humor. Worst marketing idea I ever had.
Things to say to an author:
Anything pertaining to their stories. MJ you’re awesome. Your last story. Total fricken genius!
Things to say an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:
You know Stephen King wrote a story that was way better than this. [Guaranteed death by dismemberment.]
Favorite places you’ve been:
The Northwest Territories and the east coast of North America from New Brunswick to Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. I have met and know so many cool people in all these places.
Places you never want to go to again:
New Jersey. The cops there are way too serious.
Favorite books (or genre):
Everything except…
Books you wouldn’t buy:
Nothing personal, but romance ain’t my thing.
People you’d like to invite to dinner (living):
Joe R. Lansdale, Robert R. McCammon, Jonathan Mayberry, Gene O’Neill, Bill Burr, and Bob Barker. Bob would get a free meal, but it would be a working dinner as he would be required to call the guests down to podiums where they’d make bids on their dinner.
People you’d cancel dinner on:
I know this will be devastating for Stephen King, but not because I don’t like him. Sometimes you gotta knock people down a couple pegs. And let’s face it, even the King of Horror needs a little humbling every now and again. Imagine his angst standing at my door, a bottle of cheap Maine wine in his hand, while me and the boys are ignoring him and playing Perogy Plinko for real money. Sorry Steve O, you just aren’t cool enough for us cats today!
Favorite things to do:
Hugging my grandkids.
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing:
I run through fires and eat bugs all day long, it’s a thing now. Can you rephrase the question? Perhaps, insert gargling with Mushroom extract infused with the stuff that comes out of an infected anal gland? Never mind, I forgot the question.
The nicest thing a reader said to you:
It was a librarian. She said, “I like how you put words together.”
The craziest thing a reader said to you:
It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again. Thank you, FBI Swat.
