This is a blog about writing from the words you can’t get out to the bits you polish and publish.
Welcome to the slush pile of my life…
Review: Can 4TheWords, the fantasy game for writers, be used for editing and other off-site writing?
4TheWords review in a hurry: While sometimes buggy (as you’d expect from a work in progress), it’s well worth the occasional quirk for this fun and addictive game that motivates you to write more exactly as advertised! And while the site isn’t specifically built for editing or off-site writing, there’s a couple of easy ways to make either work. Hanging out in town, picking up some side quests from the King. What is 4TheWords? 4TheWords (Get it? Like 4TW aka For The Win) is a fantasy style writing game where you defeat...
read moreTransforming princess to orange dress for The Love of Three Oranges
You want to see something really cool? Jada of creamcheese.cosplay is making some absolutely amazing costumes for The Love of Three Oranges and documenting the whole process over on Instagram (a platform I am on but barely know how to use if you want to follow me and my hopelessness). You can head on over and see everything in progress but I especially want to show you this fantastic transforming dress perfect for going from orange to princess in seconds flat. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs8dKwwHDjq/ View this post on Instagram Hey bagles...
read moreI’m now officially available for speaking engagements and writing workshops
Photo courtesy of The Nutley Public Library For a long time now, I’ve offered talks and workshops to schools, libraries and writing groups on a variety of topics year-round from beginners who were just getting started with writing and playwrighting to more advanced topics like networking with bookstores and author branding to rave reviews from hosts and participants alike. I’m an energetic speaker with a massive amount of knowledge from writing and publishing to retail and marketing who can make an hour talk fly by while being...
read moreThe Love of Three Oranges changes lives (ok, fine, maybe just one life)
Did you see this awesome profile of J’Kalein Madison, a young actor making a splash in the local theatre scene in Waterloo, Iowa? What’s particularly cool is that Madison is a graduate of Waterloo West High School and had this to say about his theatre experience there: Madison originally planned to study law. That changed in his junior year when he played a role in the raucous comedy, “The Love of Three Oranges.”“It cemented for me that I loved performing and music. A lot changed for me about what I wanted to do with my life,” he said....
read moreLitBit: Can fitness trackers mean more sleep, hydration and physical exercise for writers?
Fitbit for Writers Can fitness trackers mean more physical exercise for writers? Can having a little gadget strapped to our wrists really make us take better care of ourselves? I decided to try it out for myself. Writing is a very sedentary act. It involves sitting, often for very long periods of time, while we type until we damage our joints. In fact, one of the most common pieces of writing advice literally is: butt in chair. It’s not a very active pursuit. But as any writer will tell you, though the act of writing may be...
read moreDid you know I offer free visits and video chats for schools doing my plays?
Photo courtesy of Rutgers Prep Are you performing one of my plays? I am happy to offer visits (either in-person or via video chat) to student groups of any age who are currently producing any of my plays free of charge. It’s a great opportunity for the cast and crew to ask questions about the play and their individual roles during the rehearsal process! Because schools so often put on plays where the author is long dead, it’s easy to forget that some of us are alive and well with internet access and would be more than happy to...
read moreWriting: it’s that easy, it’s that hard
Every few months I’ll be reading something and I’ll have this full stop epiphany moment where I’ll say to myself… Somebody just made this up and wrote it down. And I almost feel a bit betrayed for a second and then I immediately think… I could just make up any old random thing and write it down. This happens about an equal number of times if I’m reading something I’m enjoying or something I think is awful. It’s just this record scratch, hold everything kind of moment where I realize that’s...
read moreMy 2019 New Year’s Write-olutions
I am usually an adjustable person when it comes to change but the new WordPress compose window is such a nightmare, I’m actually going to keep this somewhat short literally just so I don’t have to deal with it for more than I have to. I’ve said before that Setting smaller, specific goals with wiggle room is the secret to good writing resolutions. I’ve also always believed that the best goals are the ones that address a problem you are having otherwise what’s the point of changing what’s working? To that...
read more2018 Writing Year in Review
I said going in that it was going to be a hard year because I’d have less writing time than ever before and that turned out to be true in many frustrating ways… BUT it gave me a lot of time to stop and think about how I work and to refine some things and find my groove. That’s why you’ll notice I started getting a lot much more done in the back end of this year than I did in the front, despite not having any more time. Instead of hitting you with a big wall of text, let’s just dive into what this year looked like...
read moreQ4 Autumn 2018: NaNoWriMo Takeover!
This might be the latest in the month I’ve ever gotten one of these updates out but December was a wild month so let’s get right down to it… September 2018 Total Words Written This Month 41,248 New Words Only23,165 Overall After massive writing months in July and August, September was relatively smaller, in part because we went away for a week that month. Vacations in the past ended up being somewhat productive for me because I used to write when my daughter would sleep but now the big one doesn’t nap and the little...
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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.
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