New title under long words.

   Do you have seven and a third dollars lying around? You know, after going to three different stores just to find toilet paper? Then do I have a deal for you: Night Creeps, a short "experimental" novel I wrote. Don't freak out over "experimental", it's experimental only for me:

   I noticed a trend in the World of Violence trilogy, at least in the second and third installments, that (spoilers) involves a lot of cross-country travel. This one, Night Creeps, takes place in one setting told from one perspective over the course of five nights that were each depicted in twenty page increments (in the manuscript). The experiment was forcing myself to keep it short and tight (that's what she said) and see what I could do. Believe me, there was always temptation to break away from the main character's POV to see what other characters were up to / experiencing, the temptation to move to different locales, especially when I (several times) ran up against writer's block. I didn't give myself an easy out, though. It was bad enough I leaned on the World of Violence crutch the last two years, I needed to shift gears.

   Caveat: I'm happy with it but I'm not elated by it. It's not my best work but I'm confident in it. Think of this as the Blew EP compared to the Bleach LP. It's good, it's entertaining (for me, anyway, and I hope it is for you, too), and it's a celebration of a smattering of things I love: Late night movie hosts, giallo movies, old late night talk shows, silly names, yada yada yada. It's at the bottom the Long Words page and priced so that when you drop seven thirty three on it, I get a dollar. Why not give me a dollar?

   And, hey, for that cheap, if you hate it, you can use it for kindling.

Two new (old) essays up under Short Words

First: We Need To Talk About Melvin From Tremors, because we do need to talk about Melvin from Tremors. Second: An Open Letter to Bobby from 1971's A Bay of Blood, the worst kind of horror movie character: The cockblock. https://charliepauken.blogspot.com/p/words.html

PHEW!!!

   OK, so it's been a minute. Not updated since June 2019 and now my dumbass is back here in March of 2020 in the middle of a goddamned pandemic and two senile old coots vying for the position of president, holy shit.

   So what has taken me so long?

   Well, the third installment of World of Violence that was never supposed to be took me almost a year and a half to write because I went through four different versions and those all sucked. Not saying this one doesn't suck, it just sucks less than the first four attempts. I mean, holy shit, I had the cover art done somewhere around the third attempt.

   Anyway, if you want to buy it, you can check it out either on the Long Words page where there are links to both the print version and the e-Book. As always, if you're outside the US, just DM slide and I'll point you to my PayPal and we can do a pay-what-it's-worth-to-you deal.

   Also in the last year and a half, I've been working on a giallo novella about late night movie hosts so, yes, two manuscripts at the same time (so hot). That one just needs some cover art and it'll be ready to publish. I also started a neo-noir novella almost as soon as I was done editing World of Violence. Oh and I started dating halfway through World of Violence and the giallo novella, that takes some time. All this while trying to juggle Sandwich Bully, take a trip overseas for the first time, and binging the entire Dark Shadows box set (all 1,225 episodes, my partner and I are on episode 160-something). So it's not that I haven't been busy. Too busy to check in at my own blog? Yes, did you not read that list?

   Anyway, I should probably take a nice long break but there are blank pages staring at me at home.
   I need to start a band or something, man, do something more social. I know this is the worst time for that but, you know, irony: The moment I'm ready to take a break from the last literally ten years of writing all night every night and go out and hang out with people and reintegrate back into society is when there's a pandemic telling me to stay home and sit my ass on the couch.

   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

New-ish Essay Under Short Words

Wrote it about two weeks ago, don't know why I never got around to posting it but now it's posted, so go ahead and have a good laugh at my expense. Me? Oh, man, were my hopes ever dashed.

New Essay under Short Words

It's about being on anti-anxes for the last month and how one of them is kind of bullshit, just wound up making me feel worse after I acclimated to it. Now I know why so many of my exes felt like shit all the time. You can read it by clicking "Short Words" up there or this link.

Don't know what category this falls under...

... so I'll just put it here on the front page. I made this about seven years ago. Don't know why I never uploaded it.

More fun in the Short Words section.

I guess I wrote a review of 1994's SFW about four years ago. You can read it here, right at the top of the page. There are some other essays and shit, too but this is the... I don't know. I found this on my hard drive while trying to find Garfield vore.