Monthly Archives: September 2009

A filling for my birthday

Today was my birthday; I turned 43. Want to know how I spent my evening? On a romantic dinner with my wife? Nope. On a family dinner with my wife and my father? Wrong again. Hanging out with the guys and watching a game? Not even close. Nope, I spent the evening of my 43rd …

September 29, 2009 – 11:36 PM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in Rants and asides | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Writing the familiar

One of the worst things I think a writer can do is limit themselves to the scope of their own experience. Many people suggest, “Write what you know,” and yet this advice is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. You see, some of the greater works of literature were about things that no one could ever reasonably …

September 23, 2009 – 1:29 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in creativity | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Write it out…

I was browsing dog supplies at PetSmart when inspiration arose within me; suddenly, out of the blue, I’d solved a motivation for one of my characters. Sometimes it can happen like that. Most of the time, however, the only real way to solve a character problem is to put one’s nose to the grindstone and …

September 23, 2009 – 1:06 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in creativity | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Fat writer blues

One thing that’s true about writing is that you don’t burn a lot of calories doing it. I’ve had a decent summer of writing, but I haven’t been very active and what that translates into is that there’s now about twenty pounds more of me. Considering there was already about sixty pounds too much of …

September 23, 2009 – 1:02 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in Rants and asides | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Reading good writing inspires

Reading good writing has always inspired me to get cracking on whatever writing project I’m working on at the moment. That’s been true lately. I just read the first chapter to Charlaine Harris’ upcoming Grave Secret, available on her Web site, and it made me want to fire up MS Word 2007 and work on …

September 7, 2009 – 3:27 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in Charlaine Harris, creativity | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Sinking into the heads of your characters

Charlaine Harris is a great example of a writer who can make each of her characters sound different. That’s an essential skill when one indulges in first-person narration. The deal is not to concentrate so much on the Drew Estate, the murder weapon or the victim so much as to concentrate on the inner workings …

September 2, 2009 – 12:01 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in creativity | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The only trick is no trick at all

When it comes to writing, sometimes it gets as hard as finding a source for dental implants Plano TX, or thereabouts. Then again, other times the words just flow. But one trick I’ve found – or perhaps it’s just a principle and not a “trick” per se – is to just set aside time for …

September 1, 2009 – 11:57 PM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)