If you've been waiting for the chance, to buy All The Plays by Hillary DePiano, now's your chance! Both YouthPLAYS and Playscripts, who between them have 9 of my plays available, are running holiday sales but you gotta be quick to take advantage because both expire...
Positive you won’t hit your NaNoWriMo goal this year? You owe it to yourself to keep trying anyway.
At the moment I'm writing this, I'm 42,488 words behind on my goal for NaNoWriMo. On my lesser goal? I'm 24,772 words behind. Yeesh. That's a big deficit. And if I can't hit my goal, what's the point of writing anymore at all? It would be much nicer to just take the...
The pen is mighty. (A post election NaNoWriMo pep talk)
I had a pep talk all ready for this week that was your standard NaNoWriMo stuff but I scrapped it because we've had anything but a standard NaNoWriMo this year and it's silly to ignore the elephant in the room. (Pun intended.) How can IÂ be all "Rah rah, writing!" when...
Want to finish your novel? When you feel like quitting, DON’T!
You're working on your novel. You're writing away and the words are flowing great and then it hits you. The doubt. You have no idea where you were going with this. The characters are all stupid. What made you think you could pull this off? You're just so sick of this...
Want to finish your book? Make the commitment. Then make it real.
Back in the day, I used to work for one of NaNoWriMo's sponsors. We were encouraged to sign up for NaNoWriMo and try to participate so we understood what the event was about when customers came to us with questions. I dutifully signed up and joked about writing a...
I’m doing a NaNoPrep talk at the Maplewood Library on Monday, October 24th at 7 PM
Let's chat NaNoWriMo! Come hang out with me in person this Monday night at 7 PM at the main branch of the Maplewood Library where I'll be answering questions and offering tips, tricks and advice on how to get through your first novel and the NaNoWriMo challenge! Ideal...
Masks now available for standalone licensing and purchase
Exactly a month ago, I told you about my new short drama, Masks, which is part of the new anthology Bullying, INK. from YouthPlays. While you can purchase the play or license it as part of that collection, for the first time, it's now available as a standalone play...
How I Wrote The Green Bird (full length stage play adaptation & one act version)
Novelists have been doing this sort of post for a while, an all-in-one debrief on exactly how they wrote one of their books day by day (here's one example and another but there are many out there), but it hasn't caught on yet in the playwriting community. It's a shame...
Becoming your Default Hyperbole Number
It is my personal theory that everyone has one. "I can't pick you up right now, bud. I'm already carrying 37 billion things." "The doctor's went fine apart from the fact that I had to sit in the waiting room for 37 hours before they saw me." "Those socks are 37 years...
Tips for performing a fantasy play and making magic & special effects on a school budget
I did a guest post for the Playscripts blog on Friday called Frugal Fantasy: Making Magic on a Less Than Fantastical Budget filled with tips for making magical effects happen on the stage even if you're working on a school or community theatre budget. It's filled with...
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Contact Hillary
hillary@hillarydepiano.com










Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.



