Category Archives: writing

Draft done… time to revise

Last night, I finally finished entering the existing draft of MOST LIKELY…, but 20-year-old novel that earned me my master’s thesis. The final word count came in at 60,632 words in its current form. Next up, is looking into having Washington DC flowers delivered to my favorite politicians. Oops, no. Scratch that. Too soon. I …

March 31, 2011 – 1:53 PM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)

A push, not a jump

Well, today I started a grand adventure; I was downsized out of my day-job and I have decided to use the opportunity to take a swipe at being a full-time writer. It was a stressful day, though. On the same day I was downsized, my father needed emergency medical assistance that we were afraid was …

March 16, 2011 – 7:34 PM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Agendas and aimlessness

I’m at a weird spot in writing EMBER right now. A lot of stuff has come together. Most of my pieces are on the chessboard and now it’s time to start moving them around. The story is taking shape and coalescing and I should be excited. The potential is there for the novel to really …

March 6, 2011 – 3:42 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The middle is the tough spot

When it comes to my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, my biggest weakness is pretty obvious to me. I can come up with engaging openings; I often have great endings. But where I struggle is in being happy with the middle of the novel… and the stuff a main character has to go through …

March 6, 2011 – 3:35 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

MOST LIKELY retyping is going well

As those of you who follow me over on my authors blog, Craig-Hansen.com, might be aware of, I’ve decided to resurrect the novel I did back in graduate school. Bringing it back to life will involve retyping about 60,000 words from the one surviving copy I have in my possession. But that’s only the first …

March 6, 2011 – 3:28 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Snowy winter good for writing discipline

We’ve had one of the snowiest winters in recent memory here in Minnesota. Where I live, we’re no less than three feet of snowfall over the average. That’s no small amount of snow and many are the times where I’ve wished I had access to a decent Toro snowblower. However, I must admit the snowy …

February 28, 2011 – 2:15 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Writing is the key to writing

Some writers like to shroud their profession in a world of mystery, adding to the writer’s mystique by being mysterious about the process through which one becomes a good writer. But it’s really no secret. Writer write. The key to becoming a good writer is writing. Often. As much as you can manage. In that …

February 6, 2011 – 2:27 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged | Comments (0)

Project after EMBER?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to write after I complete EMBER. A lot depends on my state of mind… and by STATE of mind, I’m not referring to Blue Cross North Carolina, nosiree! I have several choices. I am embedding some potential spin-off characters in EMBER, so that I could continue …

February 4, 2011 – 12:51 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Daylight on EMBER?

With my forward progress on the first draft finally clicking along, I’m starting to work out a reasonable production schedule for EMBER. I think I’ll have EMBER completed and ready for beta-readers, editing and final revisions, by April. Toss in a couple months for that whole process and I’d like to introduce EMBER to the …

February 4, 2011 – 12:46 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Progress in ROW 80

Most of my posts related to ROW 80 can be found at my author’s blog, Craig-Hansen.com, but I’ve been wanting to not neglect this blog, either, so I’ll share here that my first week in the new 80-day challenge has left a lot to be desired in terms of results. I am an epic procrastinator …

January 9, 2011 – 12:28 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (2)

Genre choice

An interesting topic came up over at Kindleboards this week. (And no, it thankfully had nothing to so with anything so serious as Mesothelioma cancer.) A writer asked if she were writing in “the wrong genre.” When she elaborated, she explained that her specialty, the stuff she enjoyed writing, was romantic comedies. But she had …

December 24, 2010 – 1:11 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

A stronger week on EMBER

I had a stronger week making progress on EMBER this past week. I’m sure the blizzard from last weekend had something to do with it; I was home more, and therefore had more time for writing. While the day the blizzard began might be remembered by some as Black Friday, for me it will be …

December 19, 2010 – 2:21 AM | By Craig Hansen | Posted in writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)