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…
Virtual Scripts, Live Streaming and other Distance Theatre options
So with the theatre industry largely imploding and productions being canceled right and left. It’s incredibly disappointing for all performers and everyone else who works behind the scenes to get a show up. My heart breaks for everyone who was so excited to put on a show and now can’t. As a playwright, I’m just sitting here watching productions being cancelled and feeling pretty helpless. In fact, feeling pretty helpless really sums up this whole weird experience. But I ultimately realized there is at least one thing I could...
read moreOn Writing & COVID (& Camp NaNoWriMo)
About a week ago, you couldn’t go online without someone reminding you that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during quarantine so you have no excuse not to write that novel now! And then somehow we’ve gone full circle from that to people saying that if you ARE being productive and writing right now, you’re a soulless ghoul without empathy for everyone who is suffering. And, wild as a theory as it may be, I feel perhaps there is some middle ground between those two extremes? Maybe writing is hard right now because you’re...
read moreStatus update (and a Kindle Countdown deal)
So, um, how’s everyone holding up out there? Very… interesting times we’re living in, no? Anyone else just, like, completely cracked out on fear and uncertainty right now? My oldest is still in school but they switch to “online learning” (and who the heck knows how THAT’s going to work but it sounds a lot like I just became a home school parent for the foreseeable future) and my husband will start working from home on Tuesday and only go into work as needed. I am the most worried about my parents who are as...
read moreShould you write by hand? Handwriting pros and cons
Writing by hand There’s something about taking a favorite pen and a pretty notebook and just letting the words pour out. It’s an almost magical process where ideas can flow directly through your hand through the satisfying physical sensation of ink on paper. Or so I’ve been told since my joints are so bad I can’t handwrite for more than a few minutes before my fingers cramp up in pain. Writing by hand is not for everyone. But if it’s what works for you, don’t let our gizmo-loving world discourage you from...
read moreResolve to Let It Go
Happy new years, friends! Is it just me or has this year simultaneously been flying by and also felt it’s already been at least five years long? Have you managed to wrap your head around the whole 2020 thing yet? I still can’t write it without feeling like I should replicate myself some earl grey and hop into my flying car. That somehow what my brain has always pictured as the future is the present is beyond the capacity of my imagination. Speaking of imagination, I’m going to need you to use yours and pretend I posted this in January....
read more5 Tips to Get Into a Writing Habit in 2020
Everything has been a bit bananas over here (Why must kids get sick so often? Why???) and I’m a bit behind on the blog. While I try to get my feet back under me, I’m turning the blog over to Reedsy’s Thao Nguyen today for a great guest post on starting a writing habit (an essential part of Building a Writing Life). -Hillary Every January, you tell yourself: “This is it! This will be my year.” You’re going to write that book and get it published. You plan, set deadlines, and the first couple of weeks probably go wonderfully....
read moreDecade in Review or why lists are your best friend
In a few days, we’ll be celebrating New Year’s Eve 2019 which marks not just the end of the year but also the decade. Social media has been abuzz for weeks with the twin takes of “Make a list of what you accomplished in the last 10 years!” and “Listing your accomplishments is Bad, Actually, and will make you feel terrible so just be happy you’re alive.” And, on one hand, I can see how looking at a list of what someone else accomplished in the last ten years can make you feel terrible which is why I...
read moreMy Year in Writing 2019: a rebuilding year
My understanding of sports can be best summarized by the time I looked up at the TV and asked my husband if he was watching “Monday Monday Football Monday” and he just looked at me, looked at the TV, looked back at me and said… “It’s Tuesday? And this is hockey?” But despite my inability to tell a quarterback from a Zamboni, I am going to use a sports cliche because 2019? 2019 was a rebuilding year. See, at the start of this year, I realized I was looking at least at least four more years until I’d...
read moreWrite for the job you want
Write for the job you want, not the one you have There’s an expression that says, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have,” and it applies well to your writing life. Even though you’re just starting out, you likely know where you ultimately want to be. You know the writing life you want to have, even though you’re not there yet. The key to getting there is to write for that life now. What is the writing life you want? Let’s say you want to be a bestselling author. You want to have dozens of books...
read moreNaNoWriMo Pep Talk: Winning Isn’t Everything
NaNoWriMo is nearly over. Only 8 days until this whole wild challenge is behind us and we’re swept up in the holiday chaos that accelerates us all into the end of the year. I know some of you have already reached or even surpassed 50,000 words and I want you to know that you are awesome and have accomplished something amazing here this month. I am so darn proud of you! For those of you still furiously racing to the finish line, I highly recommend getting yourself a word buffer as we head into Thanksgiving Week because the holiday can...
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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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