Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 102

A small example of why I usually wait a few days on any writing revelations…

This is me, in my head:

Two nights ago, as I'm falling asleep: "Oh crud! That scene I worked so hard on the other day was supposed to happen in the dark and I have it happening at dusk even though the scene right before it is in the dark! Gah! I'm a moron, I need to go change that right now!"

Night before last, also while falling asleep: "Oh wait! My story is set in the summer so even though it is nighttime in that scene, it's probably only about as dark as dusk. I have to go back and change the part before that where it's dark since it wouldn't be dark yet. Gah! I'm such an epic moron."

Last night, while getting ready for bed: "Wait a second. That scene takes place at like quarter to 10 at night. Even in the summer it's dark at freaking 10 at night, you idiot. So I need to change the earlier part to be dusk AND the later part into dark."

Right now, actually looking at my draft: "Hmm, you know, I don't think I ever mention how dark it is even once in this entire section. I should probably add something about that and be all description-y somewhere. Why did this seem so important for the last few days?"

You have no idea how many times I wrote the word "ducks" in the original draft of this post. Literally every time I wrote "dusk."

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I'm one of eBay's featured Social Media Sellers

I usually leave the e-commerce news for The Whine Seller but I think this news transcends the topic. eBay recently decided to start a brand new program called Social Media Sellers through their official blog, eBay Ink. Back in May, Richard, the official eBay blogger, asked me to be part of a very select launch group for this program of only 9 sellers.

Well, the program was in BETA for a little while but it finally launched today. It's a real honor to have been included in the launch group for this program and I'm in some rather distinguished company up there. I wrote a review of the program on The Whine Seller where I thanked Richard but, again, this never would have happened if he hadn't worked so hard for it and been kind enough to include me so I thank him.

So, a little something for Mom and Dad to hang on the fridge. Of course, they don't even really know what "social media" is so it will probably go something like this:

Me: Mom and Dad, eBay honored me for excellence in social media!
Them: Oh, that's nice dear. Does that mean they are going to give you money?
Me: Um… no. But it's like an honor. It means I'm good at social media. 
Them: Is this all that like Twitbook, Tweetspace, Facelog stuff you do?
Me: It's not… yeah. Close enough.
Them: Well, I'm sure that's very nice, whatever it is.

Anyway, you can see the full list of Social Media Sellers here or you can just read my profile.

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Word-a-thon? Get pledges & sponsors for your NaNoWriMo novel!

Want to give yourself a little extra motivation to get that novel done? Get a NaNoWriMo sponsor!

Just like a walk-a-thon or other fund-raising project, you can get a sponsor for your novel in progress, getting friends and family to pledge a donation to The Office of Light and Letters (which is the non-profit behind NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy and the Young Writers Program) program if you complete the challenge. You can get sponsors as an individual or as a group.

I have to say that I love this idea! What a great way to support the resources and website behind our favorite writing movement even if we ourselves don't have any ready cash! It also gives a way for your friends and family to become more invested in the challenge you're taking on.

If you want to sign up and start getting sponsors for the project, the sign-up page is here. You can also join or create a group from that launch page. (Make sure you know whether you are participating as a group or as an individual before you sign up as they don't let you change it after the fact! I learned this the hard way. If you select individual you can't later add a new group, though you can join exiting groups.)

Once you sign up, you get your own fund-raising page to direct people to which you can customize as you wish with a photo and HTML. This is the page you'd send to your friends and family when asking them to donate so it's nice that you can personalize it.

Also cool? You get all the fund-raising goodies offered based on the total you raise. So if you raise $100, you get the fancy $100 level goodies pack even if not a single dime of that money is yours.

My only complaint? The minimum donation is $10. I would have liked if they'd let people do $1, $5 increments because it think it would be easier to get lots of small donations instead of a few big ones but I'm sure it's so they don't get killed in credit card fees.

Sitting this challenge out but want to support someone else? You can also pick an individual or group to sponsor.

I love the terms they make you agree to:

I have reviewed and accept the following Terms and Conditions:

1) I hereby acknowledge that I am capable of amazing feats of literary output in ridiculously short amounts of time. When the going gets tough this November, I will keep writing, and I will not stop until I reach 50,000 words. Or until my arms fall off. At which point I will type with my nose.

2) I understand that any thank-you gifts I receive will be based on the cumulative amount of money I raise between now and November 30, 2010. All gifts—including digital gifts such as donor halos for my NaNoWriMo author profile—will be sent to me in December. If I do not wish to receive any gifts, I will drop sponsorship coordinator Tavia a line! (tavia_stewart@lettersandlight.org)

3) I promise to have fun this November. To give myself permission to make mistakes, write some deeply imperfect prose, and not beat myself up over every word and paragraph. Life is short. The world needs my novel. This fall, I will get it written.

If you decide to sign up for a sponsor or to sponsor someone else's project, let us know below!

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140k words for the year… But shhhhh…

I was only going to write for an hour today to not hurt my hands. I worked for 5 hours. My hands really hurt.

I promised my husband I would be in bed by midnight. It's almost 2:45 AM.

But look, you guys!

I hit 140k! And 75%! I also finished editing a really messy/important/difficult scene!

I'm only 10,000 away from 150,000 and another chapter into my editing.

But if anyone asks, I went to bed at a reasonable time, OK? Shhhhhh….

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Passed 135K for the year! Hands still very busted.

The other night, I joked to my friend Deb that since resting my hand didn't seem to be healing it, I was going to try the radical method of *NOT* resting it just to see what happened. I was kidding but in all seriousness, I've hit the point where I've given this as much rest as I can afford to take off from work and now I need to just suck it up and work through the pain. I can't rest my hands for all eternity, there is work to be done!

(Search for hand specialist continues. Know why doctor told me last week he accepted my insurance and when I got there was like j/k? Because last week he *did* accept it and they literally JUST dropped it. Sucks. Having a really hard time finding a doc that does accept it. Bleh.)

Anyway, working through the pain: In short, I have now hurt my left hand so badly that I've had to switch back to using the mouse with the right hand which, of course, is making the tendinitis in right bad again. It's becoming a sad, sad farce.

But I have been promising myself all year that I am going to finish editing my Mistress Novel at the absolute latest by the end of October so that I can use November to concentrate on nothing but NaNoWriMo. Considering the fact that I've taken on a bigger role with NaNo this year, I really am not going to have time at the end of Oct so I need to finish ASAP.

(Side note: Strongly suspecting most of NaNoWriMo will be done with voice to text program this year. Should be interesting.)

So, today, I said screw it and made myself do 4 hours of editing. I spread it out over the course of the day so it wasn't all in a row and, yeah, hands are completely miserable but I got a lot of good work in so I think it needed to be done. I'm also not going to be near the computer tomorrow for most of the day so they should get to rest again and recover.

(Represents me, resting my sad little hands.)
Anyone else think I jinxed myself in this post where I said I might finish early?

Still have 14,603 to go before I hit 150,000 which is my pre-NaNoWriMo goal. @#$&* writing this blog post really hurts. I'm stopping now. Pretend I wrote a conclusion.


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