Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 83

Interview with SocialJersey.com about NaNoWriMo events, community and write-ins

Just a quick post to direct you guys to this interview that I did for SocialJersey about NaNoWriMo: Meet NJ Writers & Finally Complete Your Masterpiece. As you may suspect, the focus specifically was on National Novel Writing Month events in NJ but I think almost everything we covered applies no matter what area you are in.

A small taste:

What are Write Ins generally like?

They can vary, but most are just an informal gathering of writers, some writing by hand in a notebook, most typing on a...

Snow in October: the story of our 5 day power outage

So, for posterity, we had a freakish out of season snowstorm on October 29th. Because there were still leaves on the trees, the snow pulled down many, many branches and whole trees. If you aren't in the area, it's really hard to explain just how massive the damage was and how, over a week later, it's still not even really cleaned up. It's like, it's just snow, what's the big deal, right? Many areas look like a tornado ripped through. Trees are snapped in half, big branches down everywhere...

The Most Interesting Man in the World does NaNoWriMo

[SOURCE]

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… November 5, 2011

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

My (potentially controversial) post about sales on Amazon versus eBay & customer service on eBay Ink
So, I have no power at my house right now because of the NJ snow storm (It's been out since 4 PM on Saturday. Needless to say, I'm thrilled about this.) but I wanted to pop in to bring your attention to an article I wrote for the official eBay Ink Blog. In typical Whine
Care...

Tips for NaNoWriMo Success: Don't let names slow you down.

Your main character whispered her name to you in a dream. You feel the name of your romantic lead like it came through a direct channel from your muse. You're just about to write the scene when they go to her workplace when you realize you don't have a name for her boss and so you spend 45 minutes on a baby name site trying to find the perfect meaningful name for this character that only appears once in the entire book.

This can happen lots of different ways. No matter how many names you've...

Tips for NaNoWriMo Success: Let others' word counts inspire, not discourage.

You've been working hard on your NaNoWriMo novel. You're feeling pretty proud of your word count. Heh. Look at that loud mouth from the forums, she's only got 100 words. You showed her. Then you notice that your other friend has double the number of words that you do and your little word stack looks sad in comparison.

Here's the thing: Some people write faster than others. That's just a fact.

You've got two choices. You can look at the word counts of your friends and say, "What? Bob has 10,000 ...

Tips for NaNoWriMo Success: Get ahead early. Front load your word count.

The beginning of NaNoWriMo is exciting. You're full of fire, you love your novel and everything is just so darn fun. You'd be foolish not to take advantage of that and use that spirit to get ahead on your word count early.

Life happens. Things come up. You may need those extra words to make up for days later on when you won't have a chance to write. If you've got a cushion of words to fall back on, a crisis won't shut you down.

Another great reason to get ahead early is to get a better sense...

Tips for NaNoWriMo Success: Never, ever look back.

This is the single most important lesson that NaNoWriMo has to teach you. Learning this has helped me more in my writing than any other class, book or article I have ever read. When writing a first draft of anything, article, novel, short story… Just keep writing. Do NOT go back and reread what you have written before. No exceptions.

You forget a major detail? You notice a massive plot hole? Write yourself a note and go back and fix it later. There will always be things to fix, holes to fill. ...

NaNoWriMo buddy list: What's it for? Tips and more.

Heh. That title rhymes.

NaNoWriMo buddies are a long standing tradition of National Novel Writing Month. Sometimes they take the feature down while relaunching the site but we always get them back before the competition really starts. To add any other NaNoWriMo user as a buddy, just go to their profile and click the Add as Buddy link near their profile picture. Need a live example? Here's my profile.

You'll also start getting emails when other users add you as a buddy.

What does this mean...

Meanwhile, on my other blogs… October 29, 2011

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

Vendio has a contest, pretends it's a job posting for a
Mr. Whine Seller arrives home. WS: I need to read this to you. I proceed to read him the entirety of this TameBay post: Blogging Job: Vendio wants a new blogger without commentary. I finish and look at him.  Mr. WS: Holy crap, that's so sleazy! WS: I know, right? Mr. WS: And that's from Vendio? I thought
Making...