Violent Violet Volkswagen

Violent Violet Volkswagen

Have you read The Shining by Stephen King? It's a great book if you haven't.

Recently I re-read it. The first time I read The Shining was years and years ago. I've seen the movie more times than I've read the book, but I love both equally. I've always found it strange that Stephen King didn't like Stanley Kubrick's version. I think Kubrick's version of The Shining is one of the top ten cinematic masterpieces of all time, in my opinion. But then again, I haven't had someone make a movie out of one of my books (yet) so I don't know how I'll feel about it when it does happen.

Anyway, one thing's for sure: the movie is not the book. I take them as separate entities.

One of the things you'll find in the book version of The Shining is the "Violent Violet Volkswagen."
The "Violent Violet Volkswagen" is a toy model kit that Wendy Torrance buys for her son Danny. Jack Torrance is supposed to put it together for Danny when Danny is able to read the entire first Dick and Jane book, as a reward. The "Violent Violet Volkswagen" does not appear in the movie version.

In the book, the model kit is described in the following paragraph:

"Jack took the box from his son. It was a model car, one of the Big Daddy Roth caricatures that Danny had expressed an admiration for in the past. This one was the Violent Violet Volkswagen and the picture on the box showed a huge purple VW with long '59 Cadillac Coupe de Ville taillights burning up a dirt track. The VW had a sunroof, and poking up through it, clawed hands on the wheel down below, was a gigantic warty monster with popping bloodshot eyes, a maniacal grin, and a gigantic English racing cap turned around backward."

-Stephen King, The Shining, p. 130

When I read The Shining all those years ago, I assumed the "Violent Violet Volkswagen" was a real thing. I knew who "Big Daddy" Ed Roth was, and had seen his art around. I always liked his art quite a bit. I seem to recall that model kits featuring such monstrosities as those of "Big Daddy" Ed Roth probably existed, so OF COURSE the one Stephen King mentioned in The Shining HAD to be real, didn't it? And was I going to check the internet to make sure? Nobody had the internet in those days. Yeah, of course the "Violent Violet Volkswagen" was real.

Apparently not.

When I re-read The Shining only a few months ago, I had to look up the "Violent Violet Volkswagen" on Google and see it for myself. Yes, model kits of such dragster-driving monsters by "Big Daddy" Ed Roth DO exist. But the "Violent Violet Volkswagen"? Not that I could find. But I really wanted to see it! I mean, how cool would that be? Very cool!!!

So, the only option I had was to illustrate the darn thing myself. The image above is inspired by the deliciously ridiculous creations of "Big Daddy" Ed Roth, as art directed by Stephen King. I made sure to give it that vintage "yellowed pulp-paper" look, to increase the nostalgia factor to maximum. Don't you love the poor registration of the cyan and magenta plates? So retro.

Now you too can enjoy the "Violent Violet Volkswagen."

Sorry, no model kits available (that I know of).

My thanks to the late "Big Daddy" Ed Roth for making such awesome art for so many years. And equal thanks to Stephen King for doing the same.

NIGHT WALK Cometh

That guy looks PISSED!

People often ask me where I get my ideas from. See that guy in the picture above? I get my ideas from him.

That is a photo of him from the last time I went to visit him. It's pretty hot where he lives. He usually isn't happy to see me. He was like "Aww man, you again?" What would you expect? He doesn't exactly like giving me his ideas. But he doesn't really have a choice. We struck a bargain, you see, a long, long time ago.  But that's is another story...

The latest batch of ideas my friend gave me worked their way into my debut novel NIGHT WALK. As you can imagine, NIGHT WALK is as scary as my pal who gave me the ideas that went into the book. So, if you want to lie awake at night, scared out of your mind, staring at the ceiling while you feel your heart thudding in your chest because of what you read in my novel, then check out NIGHT WALK. It will make you think twice about reading scary books ever again.

Oh, and if you want to meet my buddy in the photo above, let me know. I'll arrange a meeting. He'll be very glad to see you...very glad indeed...

Heavy Metal Mania

My art on a guitar!

Now it can be shown!

Ahhh yeah. Look at that bad boy! That's my art on a Fender Custom Shop Strat. SO heavy metal, if I do say so myself.

I thought it time to get some authentic heavy metal posts going on this here blog.

Several years ago, a good friend of mine wanted to have a custom Stratocaster made, and he wanted me to do the art for it. He requested something "Frazetta-ish." I was only too happy to oblige. Of course, I had to throw in some solid Skeletor sensibility, but I think it still falls within the general Frazetta vibe. Besides, we all know that Frazetta was probably a Skeletor fan because, who ISN'T a Skeletor fan?

You can see the original art created for the guitar here.

Holy Crap! I'm on Wikipedia!

Wow! Thank you to whoever put me on Wikipedia!

And no, I didn't put me there myself. ;-)

My work for Wizards of the Coast did. I always knew that if I loved Dungeons & Dragons with enough force, it would love me back. With +5 force. Or should that read:

Merman Mayhem

EVIL Merman Mayhem. That's right, this guy is EVIL. Capital E-V-I-L EVIL!!!

Do I need a reason to post a picture of my rendition of Creature from the Blue Lagoon?

Other than it's Friday? Which, as far as I know, is in fact "Evil Merman Day" across the globe?

Remember that movie with Brooke Shields from 1980? Every time I hear the title of the movie The Blue Lagoon, I always say in my head "The Creature from the Blue Lagoon." Why? I think the answer is obvious. If you've seen Creature from the Black Lagoon, or even heard of it, how can you NOT make the connection when The Blue Lagoon is mentioned?

I don't know, maybe I was exposed to Creature from the Black Lagoon at a young age and it scarred me for life. And the fact that I've never seen The Blue Lagoon in its entirety. There's a monster in that movie, right? Doesn't it eat Brooke Shields at the end of the film? I hear the scene it totally gruesome!

And I'm pretty sure the monster in The Blue Lagoon looks just like I've depicted him above.

The Blue Lagoon WAS the sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, wasn't it?

Happy Friday, err, I mean Evil Merman Day!

And if anyone can tell me what happened at the end of The Blue Lagoon, about the monster attack and stuff, let me know. I really want to find out...but I'm too scared to watch the movie myself.

the HUDNUT IMP, May 23, 2012

Origins: Salem's Lot by Stephen King

THE book

That's it. Right there in that photo. That's the actual physical book that started it all. That's my totem.

Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

The book that made me want to be a writer more than any other book I had read prior to it.

That's a photo of the very first horror novel I ever bought as a teenager. I took the photo today. I have kept that book for all these years. How could i ever get rid of it?

Salem's Lot kicked my ass.

When I read it, I decided it was the best book ever written. It certainly was the best book I ever read. And I thought I had read some good books up to that point.

Wrong.

The writing of Stephen King did something that no other book had done to me before: it made me believe everything in the book was real. As in, it very possibly could have happened.

You see, I had been a big fan of fantasy novels, Dungeons & Dragons, and comic books up to that point. Anything that was magical or super-human did it for me. But I always knew there were no dragons or wizards or superheroes roaming around the streets of suburbia. Or anywhere else in the world. Not really. No matter how badly I wanted it to be true.

For some reason, everything in Salem's Lot seemed so darned plausible to my teen-aged mind. All the characters were down to earth. They had to drive cars to get from place to place instead of teleporting of leaping over tall buildings. They ate dinner together, they fell in love. They swindled, betrayed, over-promised, and struggled just like real,people. And at the beginning of the novel, there wasn't anything magical about Salem's Lot at all. It was just Regularville, U.S.A. No wizards, no superheroes.

With true genius, Stephen King ever so slowly hinted that strange forces were coming to Salem's Lot. Evil forces. And it took him half the book before any character or even the narrator actually uttered the word "vampire." Because everybody knows there's no such thing as vampires...until the evidence in front of you becomes incontrovertible.

In Salem's Lot, the characters, and me, became convinced that real, actual vampires had come to the Lot. Not Saturday matinee monster movie vampires in black and white. The real thing. And they were evil as hell.

I imagined that if such amazingly strange things could happen in Salem's Lot, they could possibly be happening in my own home town, right under my nose...at least I hoped they were.

Salem's Lot taught me that magical things seem more believable, more actual, in stories that are set in the familiar, everyday world that we all know. Fantasy novels set in strange, faraway places are so alien, they're obviously fake. I mean, the only place I've ever been on this planet that even remotely resembles Xanth is Disneyland. We all know Disneyland is pretty awesome. But it ain't Xanth.

Salem's Lot, on the other hand...hell, I grew up there. You probably did too.

The other thing Salem's Lot did, besides enchanting my fertile young mind with the possibility of the impossible, was make me dream of writing books just like it. Even if I didn't have the skill back then to pull off such a feat. As a teenager, I could barely write four pages, let alone four hundred.

Well, now I'm all grown up, and have managed to write my own fat book about the possibility of the impossible, right in the heart of Suburbia. You may have heard of my novel. It's called NIGHT Walk.

Several of my friends have finished reading NIGHT Walk and they have all raved about it.

Like Salem's Lot, NIGHT Walk deals with weird-ass shit happening to everyday-people in suburbia. Twilight Zone comes to suburbia. My favorite genre.

NIGHT Walk will be officially released this summer.

In the meantime, if you want to dive in and read NIGHT Walk NOW, drop me an email:

davidhudnut AT gmail DOT com.

I'll send you some sample chapters.

And by the way, what's your totem book? Or totem object? What got YOU going, that you still keep with you? Share a comment, if you like.

the HUDNUT IMP, May 19, 2012

Superhero Fist-Fight!!!

All hell breaking loose.

Friday seems like a good day for a superhero fist-fight, don't you think? As usual, somebody said something they shouldn't have, and all hell broke loose. 

And yes, Shark-head Man wears pink. Are you going to call him out on it? I'm not. Shark-head Man can wear whatever he wants. 

The more pressing issue I consider, is whether Shark-head Man is wearing any pants below frame. We don't know, do we? We want to believe he is. 

But what if he isn't?

Does he have a second, smaller Shark-head?

Shudder.

VOGUE magazine, May 1988

PART 1

He looked out the window of his office cubicle. 

The sky was slate gray and made him lose his appetite. The ground was a darker gray. It looked like ashes and trash. He wished an organized crew of men in clean, orange jumpsuits would scour the world until it sparkled, or paint the world in vibrant colors like a mural in a children's hospital.

He looked around at some of the things on his desk: a picture of his wife (the picture was trapped in a cheap fake-wood frame he had bought at Ross); an old tape cassette Sony walkman, intended for display and not use. He had an iPod, after all.

The picture of his wife made him ambivalent. 

The Walkman made him smile.

The Walkman made him think of Bon Jovi and the 1980s in general, and lusting after pictures of fashion models in glamour magazines. And all the girls he hoped one day to have sex with, but never would. In those precious days, he didn't know what disappointments lay ahead of him. He only knew what infinite hope felt like. Nowadays, he could only vaguely remember that feeling. It felt like wearing someone else’s well-worn shoes.

As a middle-aged man, he had certain knowledge of disappointment first hand.

Sometimes, like now, he liked to remember the authentic feeling of that teenaged-hope. It would come to him with power and immediacy.

Especially when he thought about Vogue magazine. May 1988 Vogue in particular.

He wished he had that favorite May 1988 Vogue in front of him right now, the one which his mother had kept on the coffee table for over a year after it had arrived in the mail. He would have turned to the photo spread starting on page 178 that featured a beautiful brunette girl with dark eyes and red lips. He had memorized every curve of her beautiful face as a teenager, and still remembered it quite well: the delicate nose, the elegant chin, the rebellious lips, the confident eyes, the conservative hair. He realized he knew that face so well, he didn’t actually need the magazine to see her.

She could have been standing right in front of him.

He had believed in some illogical teenaged corner of his mind, from early May of 1988 through at least June of 1989, that the model in that May photo-spread would possibly be his wife someday. Bear his children. Make him happy forever. During that 13 month period, no one could have convinced him with anything approaching decisiveness that he would NOT marry that mysterious brunette fashion model, unless they could produce a valid obituary for her. 

Fearing that someone might inadvertently sway the certain conviction of his infinite hope over to despair, and crush his dreams of a future with May 1988 Vogue page 178, he had never told anybody about his love for her, just in case. 

Now, still reminiscing in his restrictive cubicle while staring out the window into the dirty gray world outside, he accidentally glanced at the picture of his wife on his desk next to his Walkman. He felt his happiness slip a notch. So he concentrated on the Walkman, and May 1988 Vogue page 178 returned to him with force, and again brought with her the pleasure of infinite, perfect hope. 

It felt good. 

It felt immortal. 

He imagined himself kissing his fingertips and then blowing a kiss to that anonymous model across the years. She winked and nuzzled her shoulder coquettishly. Her way of signaling to him that she appreciated the sentiment. 

In that moment of connection across time and space, with the model who would remain forever young in his mind and memory, and forever unknown to him, he felt something akin to the blissful, real knowingness he had felt during his very first date with his wife over seven years ago. Back when he had looked into his wife’s then-sparkling eyes, and he and she had both swelled with thoughts of ‘happily ever after.’ The feeling of real hope had been so strong in that moment with his wife.

That hope was gone. Used up.

But the teenaged hope he had felt for May 1988 Vogue page 178 was still strong, and would remain forever so.  This hope was bolstered by the power of a young man imagining what could be, with the invincible power of youth, and sending those thoughts forward to the man he would later become.. This expansive feeling of infinite, youthful hope that arose when he thought about May 1988 Vogue page 178 would never be trampled by seven years worth of hard truths. His hopeful feelings for May 1988 Vogue page 178 would stay Technicolor perfect forever, unlike the gray reality of his feelings towards his actual life. 

He sighed and looked out the window at the gray world, and tried to bury his thoughts about 1988 under the nausea that the grayness outside incited in his stomach.

Hope is my drug of choice.

It’s better than having.

Once you get something, you discover its flaws.

If you have nothing, you have everything.

END OF PART 1

copyright © 2012, David Hudnut

the HUDNUT IMP, May 16, 2012

"You can't HANDLE the HORROR!"

"I went to Hell after reading David Hudnut's
new novel NIGHT Walk. It was SOOO scary..."

Welcome to hell.

Come, step inside. Enjoy the show.
See life on the other side, get right up close.

I wrote a really scary book recently. It's called NIGHT Walk. It's not released yet to the public. Several select people have already read it. They call me to tell me how scary the book is. They tell me they can't sleep at night without the lights on since finishing the book. They're having terrible nightmares...

They tell me the events that happened in my book are now happening to them.

Two people have finished reading the book. Both told me it was terribly frightening. And then they went missing.

Their disappearances cannot be explained.

NIGHT Walk is so scary, I think it's killing people.

When NIGHT Walk goes public, when I release it for sale on the internet this summer, I think it's going to start the 2012 apocalypse.

It's that scary.

It will kill you dead if your read it.

Scared yet?

I thought so.

If you're brave enough to read it, and want to read sample chapters, send me an email:

davidhudnut AT gmail DOT com

Tell me you want to read the beginning of NIGHT Walk. It will be the last book you ever read...

the HUDNUT IMP, May 14, 2012

Machine-guns go BUDDA-BUDDA

The entire run of "the Minute Men" monthly comic book
by David Hudnut & Al Cisneros

When my dad died, I discovered a rare treasure underneath his old work briefcase. It had sat there, untouched, for nearly thirty years. The entire run of original artwork for the comic book I created with my pal Al Cisneros when we were kids.

THE MINUTE MEN
circa 1985

the Minute Men #1, Cover & page 1

It wasn't much: five pages. But it was pure gold. And boy, did it bring back memories. Me and Al, sitting together on the carpet in my parent's living room during summer vacation, drawing comic books on my parent's coffee table (which I don't recall they ever used for supporting cups of coffee).

What could be more fun for a boy? Very little.

Me and Al were determined to finally make and finish our very own co-created comic book. We were so passionate about it. We designed characters. Talked about the story. It was going to be a mix of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. We were both loyal fans of Marvel Comics at the time. We started drawing the first issue. We were going to be famous!

the Minute Men, pages 2 & 3

Until my dad got pissed, for one reason or another (I probably forgot to mow the lawn or something equally ridiculous), so my dad CONFISCATED the original artwork for the Minute Men. And never remembered to give it back. That was the end of the Minute Men. Out of business. Before we even got into business.

Until now.

When I found the yellowing original art, it was a rare treat.

It inspired me to do a recreation of the cover in the journal I carried with me, in the spirit of other comic book greats who did recreations of their classic covers late in their careers. Greats like John Buscema and John Byrne. Of course, the art for the Minute Men was nowhere near as memorable as The Silver Surfer #4. So what? I'm not going to live forever.

Cover Recreation of the Minute Men #1

I made it my goal to draw with the same drawing sensibility I had when I was a kid. I cheated slightly with the flame-haired hero. Too much perspective in the drawing of the anatomy. Sue me.

And I also added some 3-D sensibility to the force fields around the legs of "the Deathmaster" (the monster guy). Notice how his legs and feet pierce the planes of the cubes? I could draw cubes back then, but never would have thought to add that little touch. But I can say that I would have if I had known how.

In a moment of adult humor, I found myself wondering what the heck the Invisible Guy was going to contribute to the battle in my re-created cover. I recall that as a boy, I fantasized about the limitless possibilities available to a man who can become invisible. But what good is invisibility when you're trying to smash & bash a godzilla-esque monster? Called THE DEATHMASTER?


"Hi everybody," Invisible guy says while waving at the camera, "I'm invisible! See? Look! Look at me!!"

the Minute Men, page 4

Al Cisneros went on, not to be a comic book artist like he had planned at the time, but to become the frontman of the stoner-metal band Sleep. After Sleep disbanded, he continued on with Om, then teamed up with the fellows in Shrinebuilder.

Al taught me some very important lessons as an artist. I'm sure he had no idea what he was teaching me at the time, nor did I realize what I was learning. But it always stuck with me.

He taught me to focus on the story, not the technique. Get the story told. Don't worry about how good the drawings are. Tell the story.

the Minute Men is one of the first instances where I actually found myself telling a story. If not for Al, I wouldn't have helped draw the few pages of the Minute Men that I did.

Thanks Al.

Al taught me one other very important thing:


Machine-guns go "Budda-Budda."

the HUDNUT IMP, May 10, 2012

A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

A word is worth a thousand pictures?

What? Isn't the saying the other way around? Isn't the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words?" Why yes, it is.

BUT.

After having worked as an illustrator for a number of years, I started to notice that I was drawing the same thing over and over again, in different variations on the same theme. It was at that point that it occurred to me to turn the classic phrase around.

A word is truly worth a thousand pictures.

Let me illustrate (No pun intended. I won't use pictures to make my point. It would take far too many illustrations. I'll use words instead).  ;-)

After any number of different art directors had asked me to illustrate an elf, or an ogre, or a wizard, and make said elf, ogre, or wizard unique, those same art directors would again come to me asking for yet more of the same thing: more unique elves, unique ogres, and unique wizards. It became abundantly clear to me that if I was forced to, I could invent new variations on the theme of "ogre" for the rest of my life, or at least until I had drawn 1,000 ogres.

And I wouldn't need to stray too far from the core idea of a classic "ogre" to do it. You know: green skin, big tusk-like teeth, brawny body, lots of metal armor and holding a big, wicked-looking weapon in hand.

I knew I could draw 1,000 classic ogres without ever having to draw an ogre with an elephant's trunk. Actually, that's not a bad idea. Well, let's say I wouldn't need to ever draw an ogre with a cheesy pink elephant's trunk or with stupid, spindly flamingo legs. Wait. Can you picture it? I'm sure you can. :-)

Anyway, I would never need to resort to drawing that kooky-sounding Flaming-ogre, in order to make my quota of 1,000 regular ogres.

All those pictures of cool-looking, bad-ass ogres from just the one word "ogre." A word, a good word, truly can be worth a thousand pictures.

Aww, heck. You know you wanted to see him. So I'm adding this guy to my quota for 1,000 ogres:

the HUDNUT IMP, May 8, 2012

DIRTY, SHAMELESS, NOSE-PLUG

Everybody knows that Imps love nostrils. They love to climb up inside nostrils and take naps there because it's dark, warm and moist. The perfect place for a nap, don't you think?  I'm also pretty sure it's common knowledge that in particular, Imps love nose-hairs and boogers. Especially boogers. Can you blame them? Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Imps make boogers. I mean, who else would?

I don't know if the the Hudnut Imp realizes it, but in today's installment, that little green imp is inadvertently promoting my novella The Nose Knows. But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The Nose Knows is about what happens when a young man named Calvin Dunkley discovers that one of his nose hairs is growing out of control. And I mean seriously out of control. Sounds like the Hudnut Imp's dream come true.

$1.99 at Amazon

What makes this horrid nose-hair scenario particularly degrading for poor Calvin is that he's hoping to find true love. Calvin works at a grocery store, and one of his regular customers is a brunette bombshell named Claudia Aranda.

The bad news for Calvin is that on the same day Calvin has finally worked up the courage to ask Claudia out on a date when she comes into the store, his nose hair has decided to go rogue-mutant. Will Calvin manage to score a date with Claudia? Or will his monster nose hair ruin his chances?

If you want to find out what all the fuss is about in The Nose Knows, read the novella. It's full of all kinds of slimy, boogery fun. It's funny, horrifying, and satisfying all at the same time.

Buy "The Nose Knows" Now

Only $1.99

Humpty Dumpty on writing

What does Humpty Dumpty know about using words? Quite a lot, apparently. From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

"Would you tell me, please,' said Alice 'what that means?"

"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

"Oh!" said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

"Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night," Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: "for to get their wages, you know."

(Alice didn't venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I can't tell YOU.)

-Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking-Glass

Lewis Carroll, 1871

Well there it is. Humpty said it best. Pay your words extra and they will do extra work for you.

This reminds me of the days of the pulp writers, who were usually paid by the word. A penny a word, two cents a word. Can you imagine?

If Humpty Dumpty had his way, after you sold a story, the pennies YOU had earned with your words would go straight into the hands of your words! You'd never see a penny for the stories you wrote! Your words would collect payment for you, and then go spend your hard earned money at the local watering hole on cheap drinks while fraternizing with punctuation marks of questionable character: periods and commas and exclamation points who would be more than happy to fleece your words of their money. YOUR money.

Humpty Dumpty, what a dummy.

DON'T pay your WORDS. Make your WORDS pay YOU.

the HUDNUT IMP, May 5, 2012

Copying Evil Clowns

Everybody loves Evil Clowns. Don't they?

I sure do. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Stephen King's IT as a teenager. Evil Clowns have never been scarier. I wonder how many nightmares the fictional Pennywise has induced?

The other top infamous Evil Clown of the 20th century, is of course DC Comics' JOKER. How can you go wrong there? Who doesn't love Ceser Romero, Jack Nicholson and the late Heath Ledger as Batman's psychopathic arch-enemy?

What I didn't know is that the Joker was inspired by the character of Gwynplaine, played by Conrad Veldt, in the 1928 silent movie The Man Who Laughs, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. Gwynplaine's father, a nobleman, offends King James II, and is put to death in an iron maiden. The King orders his surgeon Hardquannone to then permanently disfigure the face of young Gwynplaine, so that the boy will "laugh forever at his fool of a father."

If you look at images of Conrad Veldt in the Gwynplaine makeup, the resemblance to the Joker is clear. This is a reminder that all good artistic ideas are merely regurgitations, slightly altered, of previous good ideas.

Which leads me to an aphorism of mine, which is merely derivative of another great artist, but my spin nonetheless:

"If you choose to consciously avoid copying the Greats, you will unconsciously end up copying the Not-so-Greats."

-David Hudnut, c. 2010

the HUDNUT IMP, May 2, 2012

Nationals Usher To Be Honored For Saving Kids From Dog Attack

Nationals Usher To Be Honored For Saving Kids From Dog Attack

$0.99 at Amazon

The linked story above is exactly why I wrote my short story HANDS OFF. This sort of thing seems to be in the news on a weekly basis.


In this case, a man named Andre Hawthorne, who works as an usher at Nationals Park for the Washington Nationals baseball team, came home at night after work and discovered two Cane Corso dogs attacking neighborhood kids in the middle of his street. Andre fought the two 190-pound dogs off armed with only a knife and his own courage. His story is true, and in my view demonstrates a genuine act of heroism, for which the Nationals will honor him during their next pre-game ceremony.


My story HANDS OFF is only fiction. But it explores the emotions that one might go through under such circumstances, in a safe environment: your imagination.

 Buy "HANDS OFF" now

99¢ at Amazon

Donut Porn

Everybody loves sprinkles. I know I do.

Mmmmm...Everybody loves doughnuts. Don't they? I sure do. I used to go to Winchell's Donuts after school to buy a dozen doughnuts for MYSELF. In heaven, I think you can eat all the donuts you want, and you won't get diabetes. Remember when the quality of an ice cream parlor seemed to be based on the sheer variety of flavors available? Why go to Baskin-Robbins, with a mere 31 flavors, when you can go to Bresler's 33 Flavors? Well, Donut Shoppes around the country are figuring out the importance of options. Voodoo Donuts and Dynamo Donut & Coffee are two examples of Donuteries that explore the untapped potential of the All-American Donut.

Look at those prices! What a bargain!

In today's economy, where prices on everything have skyrocketed, the lowly doughnut has held fast. Doughnuts are as cheap as ever. I would argue that on a penny-for-penny basis, a fresh doughnut is a better deal than a Snicker's Bar™ or Cadbury Flake™ (two of my favorites). 

Similarly, as a writer and novelist, I try to offer the same sort of bargain. My short story DONUT DOES IT, available now for purchase on Amazon Kindle, is also a bargain at 99 cents. It's 3,300 words. The perfect length to read on your eReader device at your local Donut Shoppe with a cup of coffee, or a glass of milk. 

$0.99 at Amazon

DONUT DOES IT will fill you up. Just like a good doughnut. Or two. Or three. Or four or...

Buy "DONUT DOES IT" now

Only 99¢