Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 18

May 2017: Come what May

I was going to make the title of this post a play on May Day and then fell into a Wikipedia hole about May Day, the spring holiday, vs MayDay, the distress signal, and barely escaped so that’s why you got a boring title instead. The fact that it is already June is absolutely mind blowing to me but, anyway, let’s talk numbers…

Here’s what May 2017 looked like in writing…

Total Words Written This Month
56,103 words

Average Words Per Day
1,810 words

Monthly Goal
My only goal for the month was t...

Settling

Having bid our official farewell to Old House (as my 4 year old calls it), it’s time to talk a bit about New House. 

To start with, it’s lovely and has much to recommend it, though there are also a fair amount of headaches we knew were coming because it’s an old house (irony that the house we call New House is older than the house we call Old House have been discussed at length). But we’re dealing with them one by one and, though we are still far from unpacked (my office is completely filled...

Setbacks, missed opportunities and letting it go

I’ve tried to write this post a dozen times already and gotten too annoyed to continue every time. Why? Pull up a chair, I’ll try to explain without rage-quitting this time. You know I strive for complete transparency in my writing process so join me for a journey into my head when I hit a big fat setback. 

As regular readers know, I have a very involved project I’ve been working on for several years now adapting Giambattista Basile’s The Tales of Tales. It’s a huge undertaking, weaving many...

A farewell to Old House

When my husband and I were first looking for our first house, we were dead set against townhouses. Every house looking the same, no real yards, no thank you. Then we found this magic townhouse on a dead end and changed our minds. Because while it looked like a townhouse from the outside and benefitted from all the amenities and outdoor maintenance of a community, inside the view out every window was only trees thanks to the forests that surrounded it on either side.… Read more

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April 2017: Camp NaNoWriMo & other wordy showers

Multiple people told me they assumed I’d be taking the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo off this year because of the new baby and I was like, “Ha! Have you met me?” It would have been sensible and healthy to take Camp NaNoWriMo off after just having a baby so OF COURSE I didn’t. Here’s how that worked out…

Here’s what April 2017 looked like in writing…

Total Words Written This Month
57,795 words

Average Words Per Day
1,926 words

Monthly Goal
I originally set a goal of just 10,000 words, I ended...

How Building a Consistent Writing Habit Can Chaos Proof Your Writing Life

Despite the fact that life with a new baby is chaos and we’ve got the multipliers of a preschooler and having just moved to monkey wrench the whole dealie, I feel like I’m doing much better than I did after my first daughter was born. Not just from a mental health and personal juggling standpoint, which is leagues better than it was last time mostly because of this, but also with work. Even though I have much less time now than I did when my first daughter was born, it really feels like I’m g...

Finding beta readers & getting reader feedback on your stage play script with #TAPT & #POFF

You’ve written a play and you’d really like another set of eyes on it to make sure it’s working as intended. But while beta readers for fiction works, such as novels and short stories, are fairly easy to come by, most writing forums and critique sites aren’t geared towards playwrights. And if you’ve ever tried to get feedback on a script from someone who has no theatre or stage experience, you know that makes a big difference in how valuable the feedback you get is.

(A non-playwright writer f...

Expectations vs Reality when it comes to writing, publishing and beyond

One of the first days after my husband’s parental leave ended, my parents offered to come over my house in the morning and watch both kids for me for a couple of hours so that I could have some time to myself. I was very excited. Sure, I’d have to still nurse the baby but I’d at least get some time to do whatever I wanted. I dreamed of getting a big chunk of time to actually concentrate on a writing project with my full attention, something I haven’t been able to do in ages. My expectations w...

March 2017: Marching forward bit by bit

Here’s what March 2017 looked like in writing… Total Words Written This Month 50,869 words Average Words Per Day 1,641 words Monthly Goal I didn’t set a goal since this was my first full month with the new baby and setting a goal seemed idiotic. Yearly Goal 183,609/200,000 words (92%) Things completed: Nothing. Nada. Zip. And I’m fine with that. Other Works Actively in Progress this Month: 4th Orange my adaptation of Pintosmalto  both personal and writing journaling Overall I wasn’t sure what...

New customizations make Camp NaNoWriMo the most flexible month long writing challenge ever!

Maybe you’ve heard of Camp NaNoWriMo (the smaller, spunky sister event to the big November writing extravaganza) and were underwhelmed by the idea. Or maybe you’ve been meaning to try it out for years but something always seems to come up. Either way, with a host of really cool new features letting you customize your Camp NaNoWriMo experience like never before, now is absolutely the time to give the challenge a second (or first) try! 

What is Camp NaNoWriMo? A sister event to the big National...