Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 80

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… December 18, 2011

Don't read all the sites I blog for? Here's what you missed in the last week outside of HillaryDePiano.com.

Defining a word so common you can't actually explain
It's another day and I am yet again chatting with the Random Woman of My Acquaintance out in the wild. RWoMA recently put me on the spot by asking me to define eBooks, a word that seemed so common to me I was at a loss of how to explain it. But, on this day
How would you explain eBooks to someone who'd never heard of them...

4 out of 5 star review of Uh, Yup Productions performance of The Love of Three Oranges from the Sacramento News & Review

So, you know how I said this post was my last one for the holidays? I lied. Because I just had to pop back on to show you this awesome review that the Sacramento News & Review did of Uh, Yup's Production of The Love of Three Oranges. This is the highest profile review the show has ever gotten and the reviewer gave it four out of a possible five stars! A massive congratulations go to the whole cast and crew of the show, it really sounds like it's a great production. If you're in the area, it r...

A word count update and some programming notes.

I haven't been updating you on my yearly word count goals like I should be and that's because I have a bunch of new eyeballs on the site thanks to NaNoWriMo and I wanted to build on that momentum by writing intelligent posts and not about yammering on about potatoes.

NOT THAT I EVER DO THAT, NEW READERS!! Whatever you've heard is a LIE! Ahem.

But, seriously, I'm really trying to focus the blog more so that you don't have to be a regular reader to know what I'm talking about in any given post...

I just finished a novel. What do I do next? Revise & edit until it's as good as you can make it on your own.

You've just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November's National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you've got this first draft happily sitting there and you're wondering… what happens next?

First, let it sit. Then…

Edit and revise

If you've never edited a book before and aren't sure where to start, I've got a road map for getting started here.

"…with pen, ink, scissors, paste, a decanter of sherry, and a vast reluctance, Mr Earbrass begins to revise. This means, first, transposing...

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… December 11, 2011

Don't read all the sites I blog for? Here's what you missed in the last week outside of HillaryDePiano.com.

Amazon lets authors profit share in the Kindle Lending Library in exchange for 90 days of exclusivityAmazon recently announced that Amazon Prime members get access to the Kindle Lending Library which allows you to borrow Kindle books free of charge. While this was all well and good, authors were wondering how this worked for them. Yesterday, we got our answer. I'll give you the full...

I just finished a novel. What do I do next? Let it sit.

You've just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November's National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you've got this first draft happily sitting there and you're wondering… what happens next?

Before you do anything else…

Let it sit.

No matter what your future plans for your novel, your first step should always be to let it sit for at least a month. You just spend a ton of time throwing words down and you're too close to both the story and the draft to be able to effectively do...

You just finished a novel. Here's what you DON'T do next…

You've just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November's National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you've got this first draft happily sitting there and you're wondering… what happens next?

Here's what you don't do next. You don't send it out to agents and publishers. Not yet, anyway.

And yet, even as I say this to you, thousands of people send their very first draft out to agents the minute they finish it. Agents have come to dread the beginning of December because they get...

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… December 4, 2011

Don't read all the sites I blog for? Here's what you missed in the last week outside of HillaryDePiano.com.

How do we feel about blog or Twitter reruns? Repeating content: Smart or
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about, well, reruns. Especially this time of year when traffic to this blog usually plummets no matter how often I blog which makes sense… we're all selling and don't really have time to read. So wouldn't it make sense for me to pull from my large pool
Beyond...

Are you suffering from Post NaNoWriMo Letdown Syndrome?

imgDo you miss the NaNoWriMo
Do you find yourself bummed out that you don't have a 50,000 word deadline hanging over your
When your gym teacher asks you to sprint, do you burst into
Have you woken in the dead of night, the name "Chris Baty" on your

You may be one of the million of National Novel Writing Month participants living with Post NaNoWriMo Letdown Syndrome.

Don't suffer alone!

Commiserate below!

(If you want to use my ribbon graphic on your own website...

Daddy Issues now available for the Nook and on the iTunes iBookstore

I've been directing you to Amazon for the eBook version of Daddy Issues up to this point but I'm happy to announce that you can also get the book for the Nook or from iTunes to access on your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or whatever iThingie you have. It's the same price no matter the marketplace and there's no DRM on it on matter where you buy from so it's great value for your buck (and priced at $0.99… I mean that literally!).

You can grab Daddy Issues from the iTunes iBookstore here.You can...