I’d like to welcome the multi-talented David Putnam to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!
Things you love about writing:
Disappearing into the character and story.
Things you hate about writing:
Marketing—Yuck.
Hardest thing about being a writer:
The isolation.
Easiest thing about being a writer:
Talking to other writers at conferences and other book events
Things you never want to run out of:
Story ideas. Never happen, not using the writing by the numbers system.
Things you wish you’d never bought:
Overhyped bestsellers
Favorite music or song: Dark side of the Moon
Music that drives you crazy:
Heavy metal
Favorite beverage:
Skinny venti latte with sugar free vanilla, 190 degrees, no foam.
Something that gives you a sour face:
Anything with alcohol.
Favorite smell:
Flowering citrus
Something that makes you hold your nose:
Decomposing bodies.
Things you’d walk a mile for:
Another book like Lonesome Dove, my favorite book of all time. Others on that list are: River God, Wilbur Smith, Shogun, Pillars of the Earth, Thornbirds, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. In Five Years, Rebecca Serle, and the voice in, Lessons in Chemistry.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room:
Authors who drop in their personal political views into books.
Things you always put in your books:
I always endear my characters to the reader and strive to make those characters three dimensional.
Things you never put in your books:
Adverbs. Flat characters. MAR violations (Motivation, Action, Reaction)
Things to say to an author:
Love your work. Can’t you please write faster?
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:
How in the world did you ever get that published? Yikes.
Favorite places you’ve been:
Lived and worked in Hawaii (the real Hawaii Five O)
Places you never want to go to again:
Ludlow Calif, on a cold winter night (20 degrees) (on the metal roof of a house in a stand-off of a barricaded suspect).
Favorite books (or genre):
I read any genre as long as it’s well-written.
Books you wouldn’t buy:
Poorly written books
People you’d like to invite to dinner (living):
Stephan King. Michael Connelly. Taylor Jenkins Reid. Rebecca Serle
People you’d cancel dinner on:
Don’t know if I ever could cancel a dinner once I invited someone.
Favorite things to do:
Read and write, talk books and writing.
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing:
Dentist. Preparing taxes. Long plane rides.
Things that make you happy:
The wife. Grand kids. Beautiful days. A good book that when you finally come up for air five hours have passed and you thought it was only 20 minutes.
Things that drive you crazy:
People who can’t get along. How hard is it to be civilized?
Most embarrassing moment:
I was given a lifesaving award for pulling a paraplegic out of a canal. It’s a longer multi-level story.
Proudest moment:
Rescued a five-year-old child while all alone during in a robbery/hostage situation.
Best thing you’ve ever done:
Married my wife.
Biggest mistake:
Has to do with retirement. I failed in my due diligence and could’ve made one move that would’ve greatly improved retirement.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done:
Crawled into a house on hands and knees in a hostage rescue situation where the suspect inside was armed with an AK47 waiting for us.
Something you chickened out from doing:
After doing too many in the past, declined to go up in a helicopter on a narco operation on a scouting mission.
The coolest person you’ve ever met:
Martin Sheen on a movie set. He came up to me during a filming (he was directing) put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, you have to pay attention.” I’d almost crashed a bus into a car.
The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was much shorter. Jim Neighbors was the nicest person I ever met.
