I've had a writing epiphany and I think this one is a game changer. Back in December, I started adapting my plays Polar Twilight and New Year's Thieve as a MG novel. The first draft came very easily and it was pretty put together and I thought I'd be able to clean it...
Make it easier to add a new habit by fitting it into the life you’re already living
There's something right now that you want to be doing but you can't seem to fit it into your life. Maybe it's more writing time or maybe it's something else but, whatever it is, the secret to forcing a new habit into your life is to line it up with what you're already...
Keep your writing on track and balance multiple projects with a simple project priority list
One very simple writing tool I recently added to the mix was a dry erase board next to my computer monitor that's a priority list of all my projects. The board used to be a list of every project I wanted to write someday and it took me until recently to realize that...
On self-publishing a play versus submitting to theatres directly: an ungodly long blog post
Click the image above to see the rest of the posts in the series On a playwrighting group I belong to on Facebook, someone asked if anyone had an experience with self-publishing plays. I replied about how I had I self-published The Love of Three Oranges, racked up a...
Daddy Issues will have its World Premiere on April 30th, 2015 at SCSU
Here's some exciting news I've been keeping under my proverbial hat. Daddy Issues, the play I wrote by hand in a fit of madness in the middle of the night several years ago, has steadily been building up steam since I released it in 2011. There were readings and some...
Write the Kitchen Sink aka don’t hold any of the good stuff back for the mythical future
The most useful writing advice and I literally can't remember where I heard it. But the idea behind it is to leave it all on the table. To put all your best stuff into this book and don't save anything for mythical future books that may never exist. I took a break...
Research and rethink: the value of downtime during a massive rewrite
I took a break from rewriting my novel. I'd thought I had it after experimenting and started moving forward with my rewrite again. I actually got to that same third of the way point from the last draft and started to suspect that, though I'd made a bunch of changes,...
Experiment to break free of your original draft and truly rewrite your novel
You need to rewrite your novel but you're at a loss of where to start. I've been there and I'm sharing what helped me to toss my original version and reinvent my book fresh. The Brute Force method didn't work. I needed to shake things up and that wasn't going to...
True or False? It’s impossible to keep the NaNoWriMo writing pace up year round.
When I was at the TGIO* for my NaNoWriMo area last year, we were talking about keeping the writing going year round because a lot of my Wrimos have no problem writing 50,000 words every November but struggle to write anywhere near that the entire rest of the year...
The Love of Three Oranges and that citrus smell gag: sixth scents?
Scratch and sniff opera: At "Love for Three Oranges" in 1998, patrons received a scratch and sniff card. During the production someone would hold up a number and audience members would scratch off the corresponding number on their card and be "rewarded" with a scent...
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Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.



