Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 81

A brief story about how I almost botched up my 10,000th tweet…

One of the things people enjoy doing on Twitter is celebrating milestones. Follower milestones are a huge thing but a lesser thing are the number of tweets you have. This morning, I noticed that I was only 5 tweets away from my 10,000th tweet.

Now, it may be silly, but I felt the need to make it something memorable. But, of course, as soon as I thought that, I was overcome with crippling tweeter's block. When you look at the screenshot below, you'll notice it too me 20 minutes to stop...

So you didn't win NaNoWriMo this year. You should still be proud of yourself for trying even if you fell short.

If you passed the 50,000 word finish line and became an official NaNoWriMo winner yesterday, you were riding high. It was so much fun to watch people all over the world celebrating their victories on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook with animated GIFs, four letter words and lots and lots of exclamation points. (And, in one memorable instance, party salad!) It was a glorious celebration of the triumph of determination over procrastination and caffeine over pesky sleep.

Or, at least, it was if you w...

NaNoWriMo 2011 debriefed

"I can't wait to not be writing this book anymore." -Me, to my husband yesterday

I spent so much time this month being a good little ML and writing articles about NaNoWriMo that I didn't actually write a single post about my own personal NaNo journey which is odd. Usually I can't shut up about how my novel is going and I bombard you with little potato updates all month but I guess it's a testament to how freaking busy I was that I never had the chance. This month zooooomed by so fast, it's...

50,000 words of Lorem Ipsum for copy and paste NaNoWriMo winner verification

To verify as a NaNoWriMo winner, you need to copy and paste your entire novel into the box that looks like the screenshot on the right.

But you may be in trouble here if…

You wrote your novel by hand.
Your NaNoWriMo novel is spread out over multiple document files.
You're paranoid about someone stealing your novel and only want to upload it scrambled. (Even though no one actually looks at what you paste in here.)

Rather than having to go through all the work of scrambling your novel, typing...

How to verify your word count & validate as a NaNoWriMo winner: step by step with visuals

How to validate as a NaNoWriMo winner

Log into the NaNoWriMo site.
Go to Edit Novel Info under My NaNoWriMo.
Under the Word Count box, click I am ready to validate my novel.
Paste your novel in the pop-up window and submit to verify.

Don't see that validate link? Double check your time zone under Author Info even if you are completely sure it was correct the last time you looked. It can sometimes get reset and that is the issue 99% of the time when you don't see the link.

Any additional...

Stuck in your NaNoWriMo? Behind on word count? Constructive cheating that can actually help your novel

There isn't much time left in National Novel Writing Month and you've found yourself behind on your quest for 50,000 words. You've got to write a whole lot of words in a very short time. How are you going to make up the deficit especially when you feel completely stuck?

There's a lot of advice for last minute "cheats" but most of it is just designed to pad your count and isn't actually helpful to your novel as a whole. For instance, in No Plot? No Problem! Chris Baty recommends cheats such as ...

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… November 26, 2011

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

Some sort of massive eBay fail seems to have occurred here…
Check out the dates… Whew! Thank god you guys notified me so quickly! "Too soon to open a case" indeed.

Posts above were published in the last week on TheWhineSeller.com, MyLittlePonyCollecting.com, PricedNostalgia.com and CultofCummings.com.

Tips for a productive NaNoWriMo Thanksgiving Weekend: Dealing with company, family & friends

Thanksgiving falls right in the thick of National Novel Writing Month. For every person who sees this as a blessing, someone else considers this a detriment to getting their novel done. I'm here to give you some tips so, no matter what your plans for the holiday are, you'll be able to use your turkey time productively.

Being surrounded by friends and family is part of what the holidays are about, right? But how are you supposed to write with a house full of company? Or, if you're the guest...

Tips for a productive NaNoWriMo Thanksgiving Weekend: Making the most of travel time

Thanksgiving falls right in the thick of National Novel Writing Month. For every person who sees this as a blessing, someone else considers this a detriment to getting their novel done. I'm here to give you some tips so, no matter what your plans for the holiday are, you'll be able to use your turkey time productively.

Thanksgiving is one of the biggest travel holidays of the year. But the time spent getting from here to there can be good for your novel in three big ways.

Downtime to let you...

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… November 19, 2011

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

Is every other seller your competitor or is that paranoia? On blogging transparency and trade secrets.I try to be as transparent as humanly possible on this blog. I feel like my advice is that much more authentic if I'm talking about specific and real experiences from my life and business rather than hypothetical. The most I usually do is change some personal details so customers don't...