Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 118

NaNoWriMo Advanced Word Count Calculator [updated for 2009] #nanowrimo

The calculator has been updated a bit so that it no longer shows the year (so I don't have to change it every year) and I also corrected a few typos.

Download the calculator here (.xls format)

I know that some of you out there are as OCD as me when it comes to trying to figure out how far along you are in National Novel Writing Month so I decided to share my own little personal calculator.

I set it up as an .xls file so it will work in Open Office, Microsoft Excel or Google Docs, depending on...

5 productive writing things to do while waiting for National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo) to start

I don't know about you but there are still 30 minutes left to go before National Novel Writing Month starts in my neck of the woods and for some time zones there are many hours left before the starting pistol. But instead of sitting here chomping at the bit like lunatics, here are five useful things you can do in this time before you are allowed to start writing. Pick out character names. Remember how I said not to bother naming your characters? Well that was because it's a waste of time...

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2009-10-31

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2009-10-24 http://bit.ly/KgHE6
#the random connections in my life: eBay to Sunshine to Cheez-it to Jim Cummings http://bit.ly/1DaV5G
#Nice reviews of The Author and The Trading Assistant's Assistant from GoodReads http://bit.ly/22XB1e
#My National Novel Writing Month newbie/first timer pep talk #nanowrimo http://bit.ly/4AX8Q
#My 12 Step Guide for Succeeding at National...

Interestingly, I have discovered my second draft while mercilessly hacking up my first

When I am writing a first draft, I have a very strict Re-Read Nothing policy. This applies to fiction as well as blog posts and emails. Just get it all down, that's my philosophy and then re-read later. I adopted this because, otherwise, I get all caught up in rewriting while I work and it makes the slog to the end much harder.

That said, some of my first drafts come out surprisingly well. But, of course, not all of them do.

There is this most exciting Young Adult Novel Contest going on. You...

My 12 Step Guide for Succeeding at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Last year, leading up to NaNoWriMo, I did a series of posts covering what I learned about writing from doing the contest the year prior.

Here is a reprint of that entire series all as a single post.

What I learned about writing from NaNoWriMo . . .

If you have never done (or won) NaNo before, this should give you some tips that helped me or, if you are writing in a context outside of NaNo, these lessons apply in tons of cases outside of the contest.

Oh and if you still don't know what NaNoWriMo ...

My National Novel Writing Month newbie/first timer pep talk #nanowrimo

So my friend, who will be 13 in 2 days, is signed up for her very first NaNoWriMo this year. She is somewhat freaking out about it.

She's worried that she doesn't know what she is going to write about.

She's worried she's not a good enough writer.

She's worried that she won't hit 50,000 words.

And you know what? She's 13 and there are millions of adults out there with many more years and much more writing under their belts who are thinking the exact same thing.

So this is for my friend and...

Nice reviews of The Author and The Trading Assistant's Assistant from GoodReads

I logged into my GoodReads account today and noticed a really nice new review of The Author that was posted by one of the giveaway winners:

I've never read anything by Hillary DePiano……… I won a copy of this book in a giveaway. It was an awesome novella. I couldn't put it down! As an added bonus, she signed the copy I received I definitely recommend this book to people who LOVE page-turners. Thumbs up!

Thanks to Chris for that really nice review! You can see the original post here.

I was ...

the random connections in my life: eBay to Sunshine to Cheez-it to Jim Cummings

I'm researching an item I'm going to sell on eBay for a TA client. This involves learning the history of the Sunshine Cracker company (bought by Keebler/Kellogg if you were curious). I try to find out their most famous product.

It is the Cheez-It snack cracker.

That journey bought me to the Wikipedia history of the Cheez-it.

There I discovered that the new spokesperson for Cheez-its is Jim Cummings, who I run a fan site for.

Too weird, eh?

You may also enjoy these related posts. . . You...

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2009-10-24

Hillary's Weekly Blog Digest for 2009-10-17 http://bit.ly/2LquKs
#Are your Half.com items also appearing on eBay? Better check again! http://bit.ly/1NB8yv (The Whine Seller) #Congratulations to the winners of my Birthday Book Giveaway! http://bit.ly/AGirJ (HillaryDePiano.com) #For those that asked me how my birthday was http://bit.ly/1DQ44M
#Jim Cummings News: Week in Review (2009-10-23) http://bit.ly/tsZim
#Amazon's Booksurge...

For those that asked me how my birthday was

So Friday (October 16th) was my birthday. (If you aren't me, this story may not be interesting but I feel like telling it so there. )

For a while leading up to the day I was feeling rather sitcom character everyone forgot my birthday because we had this huge b-day/Halloween party planned which ended up falling apart which I was, at first, bummed about. However, that turned out to be a good thing because instead of a ton of work for a big party, we changed it to a sleepover with just a couple ...