Russell Hasan's Blog

 These were so cute, I just need to share them here. These were the 2025 Dunkin Christmas cups.

So, I did another round of editing on my epic high fantasy novel and, strangely, it went from 115,000 words to 108,000 words despite me adding a lot of new things into it that weren't there before. Go figure.My next writing projects are going to be the sequels in the series, plus a book I'm planning to write that will be a collection of three related fantasy and science fiction novellas in one book. I'm still not writing any new nonfiction, but, I mean, I've written like 20 nonfiction books, that's enough to last for a while. Had to put The Gratitude Turkey as a screenplay on the shelf, it's more suited to be stageplay.

I realized it got removed from my bio, so I will reshare it here: I accept emails from readers at author.russell.hasan@outlook.com. I check it monthly and will respond if appropriate. Email is the best way to reach me. Sometimes I respond to comments on my Youtube channel but I rarely check my other social media.

-Russell

 Hello, Readers,

I've finished my epic high fantasy novel. It combines epic high fantasy with elements of horror, thriller, YA, and disability fiction. It clocked in at almost exactly 115,000 words. Next step: get it published. My next writing project is to turn my novel The Gratitude Turkey into a screenplay!

As promised, here is my new author selfie, with my new beard and mustache:

 Hello readers,

I have completed writing the first draft of book one of my epic high fantasy series and am currently editing it. It's 95,000 words but the editing process may take it to 100,000 words. It's an epic high fantasy with flares of thriller, horror, and YA, and it is a series starter, not a standalone, with two main characters, both of whom are cishet young men in their late teens/early twenties. When I finish editing, I will post another update.

I've grown a beard, so my author profile picture is no longer up to date. I expect to post a new photo soon.

In food blog news, I recently tried a Nutella-filled Italian donut called a bomba. It was delicious! I also tried a cannoli-filling-filled bomba, which was also good, but the Nutella-filled bomba was slightly better. It's like a giant fried donut stuffed with Nutella.

I've also had an idea for a pizza: salmon as a pizza topping. I haven't tried this yet and I haven't seen any local pizza places offering it, so I might just buy a can of salmon and get some pizza slices and make it myself.

Happy Reading! And Happy Thanksgiving!

--Russell

P.S. If you're looking for some Thanksgiving reading, please be sure to pick up my novella The Gratitude Turkey!

 So, my "new" author website ran into some technical difficulties, so I have redirected RussellHasan.com to my blog... namely, here.

If that's where you're joining me from for the first time, welcome!

This is my blog. I blog about being an author, and it's also a food blog. I was a vegetarian for a year and blogged about that, and now I blog about pizza.

Thanks for reading!

 Hello friends,

I am currently hard at work on book one of my upcoming epic high fantasy trilogy. I have written 70,000 words, which I estimate is about halfway done, more or less. This one is going well. It resembles The Crystal of Light in a lot of ways but set in a different fantasy universe. But, whereas The Crystal of Light was a standalone novel, this one I'm working on now is a true series starter, which won't tell a complete story until the trilogy is complete, but which begins the story in what is shaping up to be a compelling way. I am going to take my shot and try to get this one tradpubed, because I believe it is going to be good enough to belong on bookstore shelves. If I don't get any nibbles on the fishhook for an agent or publisher, then I would indiepub it. I won't say "as a last resort," because there's nothing wrong with indiepub, but for this one, I am resolved to only indiepub if I try my best and tradpub passes on it.

Interesting pizzas I have recently eaten here in Connecticut, pizza capital of the USA:

A desert pizza topped with blue cheese, fresh figs, and prosciutto. Had this one fresh out of the oven, it was like a fine pastry pie, the blue cheese gets all melty and the figs also get warm and melty, but it was a pizza!

Pizza topped with zucchini and peas, and it turns out that if you put green peas on a pizza, they burst open into green dots that are like splatters of split pea soup.

Pizza topped with egg, cheese, sausage and bacon. This one is not made with tomato sauce and instead pours the raw egg onto the pizza dough with the shredded cheese and then puts it in the oven, so that the egg and cheese cook together into a firm topping.

And, I've had more of a pizza I have food-blogged about before, because it's awesome: pizza with pesto sauce instead of tomato sauce, and pizza using alfredo sauce instead of tomato sauce. They're white pizzas, but not, like, normal white pizzas. And these are so easy you can make them at home.

Happy reading and/or pizza-eating!

Russell

Some interesting recent pizzas I've had here in Connecticut:(1) White pizza with Alfredo sauce as pizza sauce/pizza topping.(2) White pizza with Pesto sauce as pizza sauce/pizza topping.(3) Pizza with tuna salad (canned tuna mixed with mayo) as a topping.
I've also formed a theory of what is in the Coca-Cola secret formula. I believe it contains vanilla extract, cinnamon, and some combination of licorice and/or annis seed extract. It may also have other ingredients. But it's just a theory; obviously I don't know for sure.
I also have a theory of what's in Dr. Pepper. They literally went to a local fruit stand, grabbed twenty fruits at random, and threw them in a blender, and that's how they invented Dr. Pepper.
And, I learned the name of my favorite dessert, which I've blogged about before in this blog. It's a chocolate cream pie where the pie crust is made from crushed Oreo cookies, and apparently it wasn't a one-off, it's, like, an actual thing, it's called an Oreo Bash Cake.
Your food blog correspondent,Russell

I have a new author website! Check it out!
RussellHasan.com

Hi readers!I just completed the first draft of the screenplay based on my novel The Gospel of Judas. You won't be able to read it, but if I can find some studio or indie filmmaker to buy it, you'll see it on the screen one day! (If you happen to be a filmmaker looking to buy scripts and you're seriously interested, please reach out.)With my work on that screenplay complete, I am now turning my attention to my next project, an epic fantasy trilogy. I haven't begun the first draft yet, but I'm an outliner, so I always begin a novel by writing an outline, and I have most of the outline for all three novels done and I like what I'm seeing so far, so I definitely plan to write these novels. It's looking like I already have a lot of content lined up based on how big my outline is getting, but I want to fit it all into a trilogy (I just like the trilogy as a format, I feel it's an ideal format for epic fantasy novels), so right now I'm thinking it's going to be three novels, but each one of those novels is going to be quite large in and of itself. Or, if it ends up being shorter than I expect when I actually write it, I might risk it and just fit the entire thing into one gigantic novel, instead of three novels. We'll see how it goes once I start writing it.I don't currently have any nonfiction projects, although my nonfiction essay "An Essay on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments" was a dismal fail, so I pulled it and republished it as "The Wisdom of God," and it's doing a bit better now -- as it should, since its new title is (I feel) better than its old was.So, that's what I'm working on in July 2025.