Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 114

A few random disconnected thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts I want to blog about but not a huge amount of time so here are some quickies to hold you over. Here they are in gloriously illogical order. Really enjoying the Discworld series. Only on book 3 but I may have read them too fast as I totally dreamed about being a wizard last night. Also, I know people say they are the series that J K Rowling ripped off for Harry Potter but, so far, I don't see any ripping off. That said, I am only 3 books in. I love them, they are...

One World One Heart 2010: Win a copy of The Author or The Love of Three Oranges just by leaving a comment below!

[image error]So my friend Diana (who makes freaking awesome jewelry, you should check her stuff out over here) gave me a heads up about One World One Heart, which is basically a yearly community building web tradition. The idea behind it is, you offer something as a free ...

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-23

HillaryDePiano.com: Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-16 http://bit.ly/8P8wD3 #HillaryDePiano.com: Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-16 http://bit.ly/8tDn70 #The Whine Seller: Rewrite that retweet! Fixing generic tweets with keywords & a better headline to provide more fo… http://bit.ly/54vQYm #HillaryDePiano.com: At 4,775 words for the year. Also Rachel Ray and I are going to throw down http://bit.ly/6RutE1 #The Whine Seller: You *have* to post something on your blog every...

Make a donation to The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders or Habitat for Humanity & I'll give you ad space in my podcast

With the horrible tragedy in Haiti, I wanted to be able to give more than I personally could give. So I decided to auction off ad space in my e-commerce/self-publishing podcast with 100% proceeds going to three different organizations that were trying to help out with the Haiti earthquake efforts.

Here is the guide to which listing is for which organization:

The American Red Cross -http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=102333&item=400097677251Doctors Without Borders – a

In defense of New Years Resolutions

Just about every year you see an article or two going on about how New Year Resolutions "don't work" or they "just discourage you." I feel like the people who say that are just as bad as the people who say NaNoWriMo is no good because its "too hard and people who can't do it get discouraged."

Yes, setting goals and sticking to them is hard. No one said it wasn't. But accomplishing something that is difficult is an amazing feeling and keeps us from becoming complacent in our lives. Saying...

At 4,775 words for the year. Also Rachel Ray and I are going to throw down

2%, eh? That is something of a buzz kill, not gonna lie.

So I worked my butt off yesterday and did all of the taxes which may not seem like a big thing but I worked from 7 AM straight through until about 9:30 PM with only a break to go to the gym (about 45 minutes) and make and eat dinner (about an hour and a half).*

*Side note: Rachel Ray and I are going to throw down. Woman claims her recipes take 30 minutes but that is a bold faced LIE. OK, maybe they take 30 minutes to cook but to cut up...

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-16

The Whine Seller: Can I return this item? No, I don't actually want to return it, I just wanted to check if I could http://bit.ly/8qQU3H #The Whine Seller: Give your blog a more dynamic list of links with WP Social Blogroll wordpress plugin http://bit.ly/8mNkhI #The Whine Seller: Using eBay Giving Works to give more to Haiti earthquake victims than you can afford by yourself http://bit.ly/7FQRaD #HillaryDePiano.com: Something I was working on has become something else entirely a

500 words a day would be 178,000 for the year. You with me?

Isn't that a scary thought? That's 3.56 NaNoWriMos!!

(Actually, now that I wrote that out, it sorta makes me feel like a slacker as I should be able to do 12 NaNoWriMos a year if I was hardcore! )

So just about everything you read says writing 500 words a day is a good benchmark to push yourself for. I know that the point of picking a small daily goal is to make it less intimidating than a huge goal (like, say, 50,000 words in a month?) but I actually work better in the long game than the...

Something I was working on has become something else entirely

The following is long, disjointed and un-proofread but it does have to do with writing, I swear!

Part of this is from a journal entry so I am going to *over-share* and get a little more personal in this than I normal do in a blog post.

My great Aunt Millie lived in Florida. She used to visit my grandparents every few years and stay for a few weeks. She didn't talk much. She didn't seem to enjoy our company.

As a kid, I hated having her around. It was awkward. She took the easy familiarity of t...

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-09

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2010-01-02 http://bit.ly/6OfG0A (HillaryDePiano.com) #
Dare I say I miss my passive aggressive Page-A-Day calendar? http://bit.ly/6DP5sj (HillaryDePiano.com) #
Hear the Muppets say your name! http://bit.ly/5lFXy9 (HillaryDePiano.com) #
Buyer's PayPal funds are reversed but seller already shipped the item http://bit.ly/8K1c4C (The Whine Seller) #
Jim Cummings News: Week in Review (2010-01-08) http://bit.ly/8iuYyq (Cult of Cummings) #