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 having your characters spout long quotations from books (which, of course, you’d just have to delete later) or always referring to your character by their very long, full name (Dr. Edward Robert Smith-Jones Esquire the third) which you’d only have to undo in editing. But there are a whole bunch of ways to get your word count up fast that will actually help your novel in the long run even if they are a little… unconventional.

Have one character recap everything that happened so far to another character. 

I actually find this to be very useful even when I’m writing outside of NaNoWriMo, especially when I’m stuck. Find yourself out of words? No matter what they are doing, have your characters take a break and have one character recap everything that’s happened in the book so far to another, new, character. Let’s say your MC walks into a bar and unburdens the story of all the crazy things that have happened so far to the bartender. Or the best friend that was out of town finally comes home and your MC brings him/her up to speed.

This can do two big things. The first is that it forces you to change things up by sending your characters into a situation where they meet someone that hasn’t been along for the ride and have to explain everything. Not only does the person they recap to sometimes become an important character later on, it can also be very telling to watch your character recap. What events do they emphasis and which do they downplay? You can learn a lot about your characters by how they tell the story of your novel and that can get you excited about your story again.

The second (and possibly more important) thing this does is that it helps you, the author, to crystallize what your story is about.  For me, nothing helps me to understand what I’m trying to write like having a character explain it back to me. It can be very useful for getting your story back on track.

And, of course, this recap will be a big huge chunk of words to boost your word count. Will this scene appear in your final draft? Probably not. But this will still be productive writing in the long run and go a long way to helping you figure out your story.

Have your characters take surveys and quizzes.

You know those quizzes and surveys everyone sends around on Facebook, Tumblr, MySpace, etc? They can be a fun little distraction and strangely addicting. Instead of letting yourself procrastinate by taking them instead of writing, plunk the next one right down in the middle of your book and let your characters take it.

Will this riveting scene of your characters taking surveys be in the final draft? Probably not. But by forcing yourself to think about how your characters would answer the questions is a great way to learn more about them. And there will be answers that surprise you and end up telling you which way the story needs to go from there so this is still productive to the novel as a whole.

Kill someone.

In your BOOK, people. Killing a character can be great for the word count: finding the body, planning/attending the funeral, mourning, and the aftermath of what the death means for the other characters are all very wordy prospects.  It doesn’t have to be depressing, all of these can be played for comedy dark or otherwise, but it’s a great way to get your pen moving even if it feels like your book is already flat-lining.

But from a big picture standpoint, killing a character forces you to shake things up and throw your characters a curve ball.  When you get them out of their rut, how do they behave? It can help you discover the path back to where you needed to be.

In general, any time you can throw your MC’s world in turmoil, the story will be better for it.

Describe your MC’s bedroom.

Take this opportunity to really describe the heck out of your MC’s bedroom down to the knickknacks on her end table, the dust bunnies in his closet. Taking the time to visualize the objects and environment your MC chooses to surround themselves with can be very telling and sometimes you realize that the fact that he kept the baseball from his first game next to his bed all these years means he really DOES love his father and the story is off and running again.

Maybe in the final draft we never see this room at all but taking the time to think it out can give you a richer sense of your character and help you to get back on track.

What do you like to do when you feel like your writing is stuck?

So, here’s a little something I’ve never talked about on this blog before…

Back in 2008, Hilarity Ensues, an imprint of Priced Nostalgia, put out a book called Through the Flashlight’s Beam: a collection of classic scary stories for reading aloud. This book was a collaborative effort and, though a bunch of us worked on it, none of our names appear anywhere on it. And that’s fine. It’s somewhat appropriate that we all “ghost” wrote or edited our parts because of the spirit (heh) of the project. It’s actually become pretty popular which is very gratifying to see people enjoying your work even if they have no idea you had anything to do with it.

Take a look at the cover. If you know me in real life, you may recognize our cover model. (Hint: It’s not me. Or my husband.)

But one thing that I did want to mention is this: We really wanted to include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein somewhere in the collection because it’s such a Halloween staple. But, unlike Dracula which had an excerpt published as a short story in the author’s lifetime, there was no short story version of Frankenstein. Except that… if you have a copy of Flashlight’s Beam, you’ve noticed that there IS a short story version called Frankenstein’s Bride which is an excerpt from the novel in the same way that Dracula’s Guest is an excerpt from Dracula.

I’m the one behind that short story version of Frankenstein. I’m the… what? Editor? Abridger? Who knows?

I’ve never mentioned this before because it felt silly. I didn’t really do anything other than find a section of the novel that could stand on its own and work it into a stand alone story. But even though this took some time, I didn’t actually create something new, I just mucked with existing content to make something new. (Hmmm… I may have just described my playwright career…)

In fact, you could say that I Frankensteined Frankenstein.

But Hilarity Ensues does get questions from time to time the gist of which are, “Where the hell did you people get this short story version of Frankenstein?” so I thought maybe I should out myself at last. They got it from me, y’all.

Anyway, now that I’ve come out of (one of my) ghost writing closets I wanted to direct your attention to this post from Priced Nostalgia that outlines how you can win a copy of this very book. The contest runs until Friday so get in on that.

Oh and if you wanted to, I don’t know, buy the book and read Frankenstein’s Bride or something… that’d be cool.

Sometimes I read books on recommendations from friends or bloggers whose opinions I trust. Sometimes I read things because I feel like I should be keeping up with the industry. Sometimes I read things I feel are probably “good for me” the literary equivalent of broccoli. Sometimes the book cover just looks shiny. But every now and then I have a very instant reaction to something. I take one look at it and just know instinctively I’m going to love it.

I felt that way about Vampirates which I loved though the series went downhill very rapidly which made me sad. But I *loved* the first book.

I knew from the description that I was going to love Soulless and that series has continued to be one of my absolute favorites.

I had the same gut reaction to The Ghost and the Goth. Finding out the author was a Roswell fan was just icing on the cake. Now we’re Twitter buddies. I love the internet.

My latest “I’m just going to love this!” moment happened recently and my husband laughed at my selection, as he often does. But scoff if you will, I know how to pick ‘em (at least for my tastes).

But come on! How can a graphic novel of Homer’s The Odyssey not be awesome? And, of course, it totally is.

A young woman comes to terms with her relationship issues while facing the ghost of her past.

So, I have some exciting news. At long last, I am pleased to announce that I have a new play coming out. Well, technically, it’s already out in eBook but the acting edition will be appearing at some point in the undetermined future. (I’ll post as soon as I see that it’s for sale, I’m usually the last to know these things.)

Daddy Issues is a drama in 1-Act with roles for 1 female, 1 male and 3 small roles that can be either gender. It has simple staging and a monologue for a woman in her 20s or 30s.

You know what’s the really cool part? The eBook is 99 cents. That’s right, less then $1. If you have the Kindle app for your PC or mobile device like a smartphone or tablet you can grab the play and start reading it in minutes. Gotta love technology, right?

Before I let you go enjoy the holiday, I would appreciate your adding the book on Goodreads if possible. (I just put the page up for it on Friday and a bunch of people have already entered the giveaway. You people are insane and I LOVE YOU!!) You can also enter the giveaway for 3 copies of the acting edition while you are there though I’ll be reminding you of that again next week in a separate post.

They’ll be plenty more news to come about this and other projects but, for now, everyone have a wonderful July 4th!

I wanted to do something to benefit the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and, after I made a donation on my own, I thought it might be nice to see if I could raise a bit more with your help. So I’ve donated some stuff and created three different eBay Giving Works listings with 100% of the final price going to the Red Cross so they can do some good in that region.

To sweeten the deal, the bidding on every listing starts at lower than the actual retail price so, if you aren’t feeling altruistic, I’m hoping I can at least lure you in if you are feeling thrifty. But, in all seriousness, I really appreciate your bids and I tried to make the listings good stuff. These auctions end early Monday March 21st so please don’t forget to place your bids.

Here’s what I’ve got for you:

• A copy of my She-Ra price guide.
• Signed copies of both my novella, The Author, and my play, The Love of Three Oranges. (As you may recall, Three Oranges was recently purchased by Playscripts, Inc so this is the soon to be collectible original version that I’m offering.)
• Two primo Whine Seller advertising spots for less than the price of a single one. You’ll get 50,000 Banner Impressions in the header (which is, of course, the most prominent spot on the whole site) as well as the banner on the bottom of the site which will run until you hit 250 clicks. The Whine Seller deals with publishing as well as e-commerce so you could advertise your book, freelance, business, blog, podcast, Twitter account… whatever and also get to help me to raise some money.

Click either on any of the links above to bid on these listings. I really appreciate your bids and I hope we can raise a little extra for Japan together!

• Some clarifications
  While I was on RRB Radio last week (you can catch the replay here), we talked about several tips for eBay Trading Assistants. Apparently that segment caused some confusion so I want to take this opportunity to clear some things up because I’m getting phone calls. If you want to hire a local Trading Assistant [...]
• Turned down a book deal to self-publish on the Amazon Kindle? How’s that working out for you?
  Remember Gary Ponzo? He’s the author who visited The Whine Seller back in May of 2010. His post, Why I turned down my book deal, dealt with his decision (and, let’s face it, gamble) to turn down his publishing deal and self-publish his book, A Touch of Deceit, on the Amazon Kindle platform. It was [...]
• Talking Tips for eBay Trading Assistants and more on RRB Radio
  I was a last minute guest on The River, The Ranch and The Bay last night and we talked about many elements of online selling, customer service, social networking and tips for sellers acting as Trading Assistants. If you missed the live show, you can catch the replay below: Tweet Share this page:
• How one blog post lead to a ton of traffic, media mentions & someone else’s press release marketing my website
  I have a funny story of how my company blog scored some free marketing from a very unlikely source. In November of 2010, I received a newsletter from the local community college. Neither I nor my husband attended but a previous owner must have because we always get a copy (or maybe they just send [...]
• When life gets in the way of running your business: 4 things you can do to minimize damage
  “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” -John Lennon Sometimes we talk about running an online business (or any business for that matter) as if it happens in a perfect world. But the reality of it all is that we are all humans dealing with other humans and sometimes life [...]
• TweetDeck for Chrome: How does it compare to the Desktop Edition?
  I really love TweetDeck, the Twitter client that makes it a heck of a lot easier for me to manage my 8 Twitter accounts. (Seriously 8. I know. It’s ridiculous. I have even more Facebook pages if you can believe it.) If you’ve never used the application before, TweetDeck’s power lies in columns, letting you [...]
• I sold my self-published book. No, seriously. I did. Actually me.
  “I sold my self-published book” sounds just like a bunch of posts I’ve written on this blog and Unpublishable Pennings (which is another of my blogs) about the publishing industry and self-publishing. Except this time that isn’t just a title, it’s an actual statement of fact. I, Hillary, sold my originally self-published book. And I [...]
• See who’s tweeting your links even if they don’t use your username with RSS alerts & Twitter search
  Anyone with a blog or webstore knows how powerful tweets and retweets of your links can be for getting traffic to your site. Many people, including myself, like to try to thank people who pass along links from my blog through tweets or retweets. But if the person doing the tweeting forgets to add your [...]
• Check out: “There’s No Place for Drama in Successful Selling” on eBay Radio at 4 PM EST/1 PM PST today (2/15/2011)
  I’ve been invited back to eBay Radio and for my second appearance I’m tackling the topic, “There’s No Place for Drama in Successful Selling.” You can listen live here (must be an eBay member to join the group, sorry!) at 4 PM EST which is 1 PM PST. They’ll also be posting the show after [...]

I pretty much never do any self-promotion around here but since it’s the holidays and people are spending money left and right, I thought it might be an appropriate time to remind you that I have books (both paper and eBook, fiction and non) for sale and I’d really appreciate if you were to pick up a copy for yourself or a friend (or, hell, for both). The Author in particular is priced at under $5 making it both an excellent stocking stuffer and an excellent way to hit the $25 limit for Super Saver on Amazon if you, like me, are too cheap to pay for shipping. (The deadline for Super Saver for holiday delivery is the 19th of December, though, so better hustle on that.)

You can find all of my books for sale at Amazon here but I’ve also made you a little Amazon widget below telling you about each of them with a little note.

Hot tip: The version of The Love of Three Oranges currently available may soon become rather collectible, may want to grab a copy now if you don’t already have one. Not that you heard it from me or anything.

So we already talked about the One Act that represented the first 11 pages of my Screnzy 100. But what is the bulk of my page count about.

Script #2: The Muppet Play

When I was in college, a year after I wrote The Author, I started another novella. I was going along pretty good with it when my adviser told me that novellas were a waste of time. Now this whole conversation was much longer and was mostly about The Author but the end result was that I walked away realizing that the story I was working on wasn’t going to be long enough to be a novel but was too long for a short story so, like The Author, it was going to be “unpublishable.”

So from 2002 to 2010, the story of that novella has been gestating in my head. Amusingly enough, the story is about someone who is many years out of college, trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. This is funny, of course, because when I started it, I was still in college and thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Now, I am actually in the same place as the characters which makes it that much easier to write. Of course, I know what I want to do with my life but, handily, my brother does not so I have many hours of conversations with him on this topic to draw upon. So, in many ways, it’s better I waited as I am more equipped to write this story now then when I started it.

I also went back and forth over the years as to whether the story should stay prose or become a stage play. In recent years, I’ve leaned much more towards making it a play though I still go back and forth. I figured if I committed to writing the whole thing as a play, at least I’d have the whole story down and could more easily convert to prose later if I wished. So I decided to make this my Screnzy play this year. It has a working title but let’s call it The Muppet Play for blog purposes.

Because, see, the play also deals with the Muppets. Of course, on the surface, the Muppet connection isn’t apparent. The story isn’t about the Muppets and, aside from one character that is a fan, they aren’t really a part of the story. But, to me, the Muppets are what this play is about. I think of this play as “Riffs on The Muppet Movie and Especially I’m Going to Go Back There Someday.” I’m Going to Go Back There Someday is a song that Gonzo sings in the film and it is very deep and abstract and the best way I can explain this play is that I listened to that song and this play is my interpretation of what that song means to me. If for some reason you have never heard this, greatest of Muppet songs, you can listen to it here.

I wasn’t sure how long this play would be, especially since it was originally written to be a novella but the 45 page mark was the end of Act 1 so I certainly seems like it will be near the 100 page mark all told. I am still not 100% sure that a stage play is the best way of doing this story but its working so far.

Of course, this play needs to be all about subtly and understated things to work and as you may expect, my first draft is very bull in a china shop but I’m OK with that. Second Draft Hillary is a much better writer than First Draft Hillary, what’s important now is getting it all down. I have my moments where I am afraid I’m not a good enough writer to pull this play off but I think parts of it are very good and it has the potential to be really great once finished.

So, anyway, as promised, that is what I am working on for Script Frenzy. As you see my page count change these last days of the challenge, know that The Muppet Play is what I am working on.

OK, I numbered all of your comments on my One World One Hearth give-a-way and let a random number generator pick a winner so I couldn’t play favorites.

So the winners are…. (drum roll, please)

Thank you to everyone who played and thank you for stopping by my blog! It was lovely meeting all of you.

If you haven’t already subscribed to this blog or followed me on Twitter (@HillaryDePiano) so we can keep in touch, please do so!

And if you didn’t win a copy of The Love of Three Oranges or The Author, you can grab one on Amazon.

So my friend Diana (who makes freaking awesome jewelry, you should check her stuff out over here) gave me a heads up about One World One Heart, which is basically a yearly community building web tradition. The idea behind it is, you offer something as a free prize and Lisa from A Whimsical Bohemian adds you to the directory of participating sites. Therefore, other participants and just people looking for a free give-a-way will come and visit your site giving you a chance to find new readers, meet new people and discover new blogs.

If you have a blog, all you need to do to play along is to post about your give-a-way on your blog. The official entry details can be found here.

If you don’t have a blog or otherwise have nothing to give-a-way, you can still play along by entering some of the give-a-ways and getting some free stuff. People like free stuff, it’s a fact.  Just go to this page and pick any site from the list on the right hand navbar. There are some really cool crafts and other nifty stuff up for grabs so it’s worth a look. And you may find some cool new blogs to follow and people to chat with online.

So, that’s what’s going on. As you likely guessed from the title, I’m going to join in this little web party myself.

For those of you only visiting for One World One Heart, let’s take a moment to get to know each other. Hi! I’m Hillary DePiano. I’m a fiction and non-fiction author. I also am obsessed with The Muppets, The Sims and My Little Pony. These things keep me off the streets. Over here on this blog (Unpublishable Pennings) I write about writing but I actually write for several other blogs including The Whine Seller (e-commerce and selling online), My Little Pony Collecting.com (take a wild guess what that one is about) and The Cult of Cummings (voice-over actor Jim Cummings fan site.) I’m also on Twitter here and Facebook here. Feel free to fan or follow me on either and say hello!

The book I am most known for is The Love of Three Oranges which is a play (for the theatre) that has been performed all over the world. My newest book is The Author which is a novella that is part mystery, part thriller, part comedy. It’s won some awards so apparently people like it. I have other books but these are the two that are up for grab today. You can see the full list of the books I’ve written here.

Here are the terms of my give-a-way:

• I am going to pick two random winners from the people who comment on this post. 
• The only rule is that, in your comment below, you have to introduce yourself. It can be only a few sentences but, since the point of this is to get to know other bloggers, just give me an idea of who you are, what you do and where I can find you (link to blog, Twitter, etc).
• Those two winners will have their choice between a printed copy of The Author (my newest book, a novella) or The Love of Three Oranges (a play and also my oldest book). 
• Your comment has to contain valid contact info so I can contact you if you win. My comment system lets you log in through just about anything so just make sure it’s a valid email address, link to your site or Twitter, Facebook, whatever otherwise I won’t be able to contact you to send you the prize. You don’t have to post it in the comment, as long as you log in with valid info, I can see it on the admin side. Just no made up info is all I ask. 
• The contest is worldwide. Anyone from anywhere can enter. I will mail the winner a copy of the book they choose.
• My family cannot enter (sorry). But since this is totally random, my friends can enter if they want since it will be impossible for me to show favoritism. Enemies may also enter if they so desire. So as long as you are not closely related to me, jump on in!

Keep in mind that everyone who comes to this blog will read your comments so you aren’t just introducing yourself to me, you’re introducing yourself to The World so keep that in mind.

So, as we covered, I’m Hillary. And you are. . .