People don’t only talk about your work. They talk about YOU as a human in ways that can be upsetting or downright damaging to both your writing career and your general mental health.

In Author Anxiety: On dealing with bad reviews, we talked about reacting to negative reviews of your work. This post will deal with a similar but also distinct issue of being an author: personal attacks or what happens when you suddenly find yourself one of the main characters in the industry drama of the day.

Readers sometimes have trouble distinguishing between an author and their work. They’ll claim you, the author, surely condone everything your supervillain believes or only included that dark element in your book not because you wanted to deconstruct the issue, but because you’re secretly evil.

Don’t you know that authors truly believe every word out of their characters mouths? 🙄

Or, worse yet, they use your writing to attack your personal life, forcing queer or neurodivergent authors to out themselves or reveal their medical history as their only defense. We’ve seen this play out dozens of times, most famously to Love, Simon author Becky Albertalli.

Readers have opinions on the stories they read and the people who write them. A hundred years ago, an author could remain blissfully unaware of what people were saying about them and their work unless they ran into them in person. But in the social media era, it’s near impossible to have any kind of presence online without encountering negative comments, even if you’re not looking for them. Half the time, readers even take the time to tag you directly to make sure you don’t miss them chewing you out or ripping your book apart.

There’s a lot we could say about how we got to this place as a society where it comes to the intersection between parasocial internet relationships, algorithms that favor outrage engagement, media literacy or, really, literacy in general, but most of that isn’t within our control as authors.

There is only one part of this we can control and that’s how we react to the things people say.

Story Time!

The post Author Anxiety: on personal attacks, industry ire and people talking behind your back appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Disclaimer that I am receiving no compensation for my honest opinion and review, though some of the links herein are my referral link and, if you sign up using it, we both get onsite gifts. I do not work for the company other than occasional volunteer work such as beta testing and community moderation. I just like them!

Deep Dive into the new 4TW Desktop App

(I know our next post was supposed to be the next installment of our Author Anxiety series, but I pushed that back a week so we could talk about this breaking news!)

Regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of 4TheWords, the writing site that gamifies writing by rewarding you with monster battles, quests, streak rewards and more. Over the last 8+ years I’ve been a member*, the site went from a novelty I tried on a whim to an essential part of my writing process. Particularly after the birth of my second child, it’s no exaggeration to say the motivating gimmick of defeating monsters and progressing with quests with my words on 4TheWords was the only reason I kept the words flowing as I juggled the chaos of two kids, a global pandemic and the demands of multiple pen names.

But the limitation of 4TW has always been that you could only take advantage of the gamification features if you wrote directly on site and the on site editor was… not great. Some people got around that by only using the onsite composition window for rough drafting and then moving the writing elsewhere later for revision and formatting. Or they’d write entirely offsite and credit themselves with an equivalent amount of junk text on site later (something I had to do often because most of what I write is scripts and it’s basically impossible to write in script format on the 4TW site).

Earlier this year, they released a Chrome extension that gave users the option to write directly into web based editors like Google Docs or Ellipsus or even blogging sites or fanfic platforms like Archive of Our Own or Wattpad. (See: Use 4TheWords to count your writing anywhere on the web with the new Chrome browser extension!) This increased your options, but was still limited… particularly as Chrome is increasingly unpopular these days with all its privacy issues.

Then, just a few weeks ago they did a total overall of the on site Write mode, adding in a ton of formatting options and long requested options like sharing, co-writing and comments. If you haven’t tried it in a while, it’s worth a fresh look, since they might have addressed whatever your biggest issue was (though I’m personally not a huge fan of the new Write screen for a bunch of reasons). But, while these quality of life improvements are nice, it’s no substitute for the comfort of being able to just write directly in the program of your choice, be that old standbys like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer or programs purpose built for writers like Scrivener, Drabble, Atticus, Obsidian or even screenwriting software like Celtx or FinalDraft.

Enter the new 4TheWords desktop app.

Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, it works on a system level, counting keystrokes without ever looking at your actual words, so your writing always stays private. This set-up means it’s able to count words in literally any program or website you set it to track and you can opt programs in and out of counting with a single click. Yes, this means you can finally use 4TW in browsers like Safari, Firefox, Brave and Opera. You’ve also got the option to include or exclude copy and paste or let it ask you every time.

The app has three main display options:

• a little mini bar that just shows the essential details of your current battle
• an expanded dashboard with everything you might need such as your streak info, queue, battle history, daily quests, questbook and more
• a system tray icon that shows a tiny indicator of the monster you’re currently fighting and your progress on that battle in the form of a little progress circle

Simply build your queue, hit play and start writing in your program of choice knowing every word you write counts towards progressing on quests and defeating monsters.

Review of the 4TheWords Desktop App

While the app was only released to the public today, I was a part of the beta testing group for it, so I’ve been living with it for a while now and using it for my daily writing. And, spoiler alert, I really like it. It’s been so nice to be able to just work directly in my preferred writing programs all week while playing the game without having to choose between the two. I don’t think I’ve written onsite since they released it, except a handful of times just to help them test how word count was syncing.

It was also perfect timing because I’m in the weeds of editing several big writing projects. Normally, this would mean I mostly write off site and have to try to remember to credit myself for that writing on the 4TW site later so I don’t lose my streak. But, thanks to the desktop app, I’ve been able to count that editing work in real time.

This new app makes it a lot easier to recommend 4TW to other writers, especially since they can use it with whatever program already works for them. It takes what was a niche writing motivational tool and really opens it up to the mainstream in a big way.

Of course, while this is a huge game-changer in a lot of ways, I have some quibbles and there are a lot of ways I’d like to see them improve things in the future.

(Disclaimer that this review is of an early version of this software and, as such, may refer to things that have since changed.)

What I Like

Works as advertised. Probably the very best thing you can say about this new app: It does exactly what it says it does. I do the majority of my writing in Scrivener, most of my world-building in Writality and spend all day jumping between those programs and answering emails in Gmail in Firefox. Normally, to write up a newsletter or blog post like this and take advantage of 4TW’s features, I would have had to draft it onsite, paste that draft into Brevo, MailChimp or WordPress and then spend extra time formatting it for those platforms.

Now? I’m writing this post directly into WordPress’s new post builder and formatting as I go while the app counts the writing towards my monster battle. It’s a huge time-saver.

Tracks app by app word count. This week, I’m working on a script in Scrivener between fielding emails about scheduling a writing workshop. I love that I can just jump back and forth between the two documents and the app keeps track of how many words went into each program without my having to stop and do math to remember what my word count total was before I switched tasks.

Finally, 4TW for editing! One of the limitations of 4TW has always been that there isn’t really a good way to use it for editing. One of the best things about the new desktop app is that you can loop up a monster with a long timer or even one of the more generous endurance monsters while you’re editing or even formatting and putter around with your document without having to move that text on site or do math after the fact to figure out how to credit yourself for what might have been hours of work for a net word count loss.

Of course, it’s not perfect, especially since even the most generous endurance monsters still require you to type at least something every few minutes, but it’s a far better option than what we had before.

Limited need to visit the website at all. Because you can add monsters to your queue, use potions, and hand in quests right from the app, there’s a lot you can do right from your desktop without having to visit the website at all. That said, this has limitations so I’ve ended up having to visit the website multiple times a day just to compensate for the limitations of the app.

What Needs Work

Mini player is too small, expanded player too distracting. I have ADHD and it really does not take much to pull my focus. The main version of the app is much too busy and I really can’t concentrate at all with it open because it takes up too much room on my screen. So I mostly use the app on Mini Bar mode.

Problem is, the Mini Bar is a little too small. As you can see in my screenshot above, the monster is sooo teeny tiny, I can barely make out what I’m fighting. Without the area art behind them, a lot of them become all but invisible against the background color of the app.

In addition to the fact that this kinda defeats the purpose of the gamification– it doesn’t feel like I’m battling a monster if I can’t even see the dang thing!– it’s way too easy to completely forget you have a battle going at all or get distracted. I’ve had to move the Mini Bar directly above the paragraph I’m currently on just to force myself to remember I have monster going on.

Considering the main thing I need 4TW for is that motivating push of the monster timer to keep me writing, I really wish that either the mini bar had an option where the monster image was larger or that there was an option between the Mini and Main bar that let you see the monster clearly without all the other distractions that the main bar offers.

Considering the new write screen also downplayed the monster battle and shrunk the art tiny, I’m a little concerned this might be part of a trend to downplay the gamification elements, which feels silly as that’s the entire point of using the site!

No option to dock the app out of the way. The app hovers above whatever program you’re using. While I can see why people might like to have this as an option, I’d really like to be able to dock it at the top or side of my screen so it’s out of the way. As it is, even with the mini bar, I end up having to move it constantly because it’s always covering something I need.

Ideally, I’d love it to work like the Windows Voice Typing bar where it docks against the top of the screen no matter what program I’m using since maybe then they’d have more room and actually be able to show the monster artwork.

Queue management is limited, frustrating and wonky in app. The app is supposed to let you do all the day-to-day functionality of using 4TW without having to actually visit the site. In practice, the queue management is fiddly. Loop doesn’t always sync between site and app, adding monsters is kind of a pain, you can’t duplicate frozen monsters and you can’t fill the queue with a monster.

As a result, if I’m doing anything more complicated than just fighting one single monster on continuous loop, I end up having to stop and open the site constantly to set up my queue there because it’s just way easier than dealing with it in the app.

No way to collect quests from within the app. The app shows your top three quests and you can hand quests in from within the pop-up window, which is nice. But there’s no way to grab new quests, not even your favorites, so you end up having to go back to the site everyday anyway to collect quests so you have stuff to work on.

Daily breakdown is limited to the last 24 hours. This is a huge limitation I’m really hoping they’ll fix soon. I mentioned above that one of the best features of the app is the way it breaks down your writing app by app. The problem is that these stats expire at midnight when those totals are folded into the total for the week.

So, to use the example above, let’s say I’m doing that script-writing in Scrivener and jumping back and forth between that and writing emails. If I don’t notice the clock ticking past midnight or get called away from my computer and don’t get a chance to return until the next day, there is no easy way for me to note down how much I wrote in Scrivener because now that word count has been absorbed into the word count for the week. At best, it’s a complicated math equation, at worse, it’s impossible to find out if I didn’t write down the total from the day before.

Especially since programs like Writality and Scrivener don’t register individual document names in this app. So if I worked on two different projects in Scrivener this week, those both show as part of the same total once we tick past midnight.

I understand if there’s a reason why they don’t want to save day by day lifetime breakdowns, but they really need to give us access to that data at least a week after the fact or it’s a nightmare to try to keep track of your writing progress unless you remember to write down your total without fail every night.

That said…

Overall, though, I still see this new desktop app as a huge step forward and something that will absolutely be useful to me in the future, especially since I really don’t like the way they shrunk the on site Write mode from what we had before. It’s increased the functionality of the site and made it more accessible to a wider pool of writers. Coupled with the free plan, it’s super easy for anyone to try it to out without having to change their normal writing routine and see if they like it without much of a commitment.

I also have faith they’ll keep improving things as we go, particularly as I think their focus on was mostly on getting this released and functional before November so they can work on making it pretty later.

And the release timing is perfect, since their biggest event of the year, Write Fest, starts soon. This limited time event runs from the end of October through the beginning of December with plenty of exclusive new quests, monsters and fun for everyone looking to take on one of the big November writing challenges.

(My daughter and I were joking the new theme looks like the love child of The Amazing Digital Circus, Winnie the Pooh, and Super Mario)

If you use my referral code, you’ll get the option to friend me after sign up so, if you decide to try it out, please drop me a message and I’d be happy to send you a welcome gift of onsite loot!

Read more about the new extension at its official page here.

The next few weeks are super busy for me while I juggle setting up my 2027 teaching schedule with all the usual autumn authorial events so I wish you all a happy writing season as we rocket into the new year!

* = I actually first joined in December 2014 when 4TW advertised a free trial as part of NaNoWriMo and was not impressed. Fortunately, they’d completely overhauled the site by the time I decided to try them again in June 2018 and have continued to improve the site since then. Now it’s the rare company I feel good supporting with my dollars.

The post 4TheWords ANYWHERE: New desktop extension means gamified writing motivation no matter where you write appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

You can’t please everyone. In fact, the surest way to fail at any kind of creative work is to try. Even your favorite book has its haters.

But publishing is also a business. Your book may be your baby but the minute you put it out there for sale, it becomes a product where your readers are your consumers. Customers have a right to express an opinion on the products they purchase and many don’t realize the distinction between “big box chain store that makes millions of dollars a second so one scathing review means nothing to them” and “struggling indie author whose book lives and dies by every review.” This can be especially frustrating when you haven’t gotten many reviews and the one bad one drags your whole star rating down or limits your exposure in the algorithm. Readers don’t realize their one bad review could be the thing limiting your shop visibility or preventing you from participating in bundles or group promos and they aren’t responsible for the retail hellscape that is our present moment.

And as much as it would be great if we could simply not look at reviews and concentrate on the work, sometimes that’s not realistic or possible. Especially when you’re an indie author or proactive about marketing your book, simply visiting your book page or interacting with your readership means glimpsing your reviews whether you like it or not.

Heck, sometimes readers even have a point and if you’re doing something that’s unwittingly causing harm or could be making your books better, that IS something you’d want to know. Negative reviews can sting but sometimes there’s a grain of truth in even our harshest critiques.

I struggle with this too. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of a bad review that ruins my whole day. Other times there’s a review dragging down my whole star rating that isn’t even for my book, it’s for a another work with a similar title or a different product entirely and there’s not a dang thing I can do about that.

This is why I always emphasize during my Marketing class is that the very best thing you can do to market your books is make sure you’ve written the best damn book you possibly can before you do anything else. A good book will generate more good reviews and word of mouth. The more people talking about your work overall, the more the positive comments will drown out the negative.

I can’t tell what to do to never see a single bad review nor how to control your reaction to them. But I can tell you what NOT to do…

The post Author Anxiety: On dealing with bad reviews appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Hey, so I goofed…

• Goof #1 is that I accidentally posted an older version of this post that said the event was on October 10th even though we moved it to the 13th earlier in the year. The details below are correct.
• Goof #2 is that I knew RWO was no longer accepting new members, but I didn’t realizing they were also not letting anyone register for individual workshops anymore. So, if you’re not already a member, there’s no way for you to complete the sale to attend this workshop anymore, sorry about that. If you still want to be able to attend, you can try emailing RWO and they might be able to help you out, but there’s no way to register online anymore.

Very sorry for any confusion this caused!

(It’s a weird situation because this is one of the last workshops for RWO before they close doors so things are a little out of the ordinary. Well, that and I saw the message that there was a newer version of the post and ignored it which is fully on me. 😅)

Save the Book: A Novel Approach to Writing Cinematically

Presenter: Hillary DePiano

October 13, 2025
8 pm EST

90 minutes

$15 (Free for General Members)

Unlock your creativity and conquer writer’s block in this Zoom workshop on using scriptwriting tricks to take your novel to the next level!

Draw on techniques used in theatre, graphic novels, video games, TV and movies to think cinematically. In this workshop from playwright Hillary DePiano, we’ll focus on visual storytelling, crafting compelling characters and elevating your story into something audiences can cheer for.

Whether you’re stuck in the middle of your first draft or looking for a way to give your latest revision an extra buff, re-imagining your novel as a script can give you that fresh perspective you need to reignite your passion for your story, untangle narrative issues and propel your book from boring to blockbuster.

Zoom Workshop

The post Save the Book: A Novel Approach to Writing Cinematically [Zoom Workshop] at RWO on October 13 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Some quick business before we begin: If you’re local, I’m doing an intro to writing talk at the Parsippany Library this Saturday, September 26 at 1 pm. It’s free of charge, but you do need to register ahead of time to reserve your place here.

Speaking of local events, today’s topic is directly related to the intersection between Real You and Writer You.

“Do you recommend choosing a pen name or publishing under your real name?”

This one came in from the mailbag via regular old email. It’s a question that I think a lot of people worry about and something I personally have gone back and forth on throughout my life so I wanted to devote a whole post to it.

Publicity vs Privacy

Hillary DePiano is my real, legal name. 

While I was sensible enough not to give out my personal information on the internet when I first logged on as a teen, I did use my real name when I started putting my writing out there in my early 20s. In part because of the childish desire to see my name on a book cover I think we all have to some extent. But mostly because it was just simpler. No additional registration or steps needed. It made it a lot easier to handle in person events such as teaching local workshops (such as the one above), appearing on panels or interacting with other writers and clients.

I do a lot of in-person events. School appearances, conventions, writing group meetings, Zoom workshops, and giving talks are all easier when you’re working under your real name because there’s no additional layer. There’s an authenticity to being your real self that makes it easier to network and connect person-to-person.

There IS a kind of marketing benefit to writing under your real name. Whenever you introduce yourself, that’s getting your author name out there. If you meet me at a conference or hear me on a podcast (same as if we just meet at a PTA meeting or at the gym), when you see my name later, you’ll get that ping of recognition that makes you more likely to check out my stuff.

Granted, it helps that my name is unique enough that you can find me pretty easily, even if you spell it wrong.

Plus, people love to brag that they know someone “famous.” Many of my real life acquaintances have given me amazing word of mouth even without ever reading my stuff because they simply recognized my name and wanted to flex to strangers that they knew me.

The other side of this same coin, though, is that people can be creepy about it. “Fans” picked out innocuous details from my books and blog posts and used them to harass my family and friends. When I became a parent, that added a whole new level of fear because I knew anything I said under my real name would reflect on my kids and had the potential to hurt them.

Something that happened to a writer friend of mine: They had a bad day and posted a frustrated Facebook post about how they wanted to “kill” a friend’s ex. Ill advised? Maybe. Hyperbole? Clearly. But readers took a screenshot of the post and passed it around, claiming the author advocated violence. That friend is STILL on reader block lists even though that happened YEARS ago.

Existing as a semi-public figure is a lot like the nightmare of giving a presentation in your underwear. People ARE watching and you can’t use the internet like you could as a “normal person” anymore. It’s exposing and can have a negative effect on your personal life.

For that reason, I have often wished I did NOT use my real name as my author name. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons my new pen name is entirely secret and you’ll likely never see me reveal it on this blog.

For me, privacy > any marketing or networking benefit I got from using my real name.

Branding

The post From the mailbag: Use a pen name or publish under your real name? appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Anyone remember those old Toys R Us commercials where Jeffery would scream, “Big Savings!” then whisper calmly, “That’s my big toy book voice.” 

No? 

That is a shame because it’s been replaying in my head for easily a decade. 

Anyway I, like the late Jeffery, come bearing Big Savings! 

Namely, a special collected edition that lets you get all five Tale of Tales plays for the price of just three! 

(I had to pause here to look up if there is a difference between an anthology and a omnibus and apparently anthology is for when you collect multiple works from different authors while omnibus is like this, collected works all from the same author. You learn something new every day! Now what was I talking about again…?)

This is one of those things people have been requesting forever, but it was never the most important thing I had to do so it just kept getting pushed down the proverbial list of things to do. But I finally got around to doing it so, take that procrastination! 

This edition is eBook only. My thought process is that people will want this for reading and previewing the plays and if they actually want to produce one of them, they’ll can just contact me directly for acting editions. Since I can hook them up at a discount over buying individual copies and that’s more cost effective. 

But maybe I’m totally wrong about this so if you have a burning need for a paperback copy, let me know! If enough people are interested, I will set one up.

Where’s Vardiello?

While this does collect all the Fairly Obscure Fairy Tale Plays, it does not actually include all of my Tale of Tales plays. That is because Vardiello is exclusively available through Brooklyn Publishers.  

Not a huge issue, I think, since that one doesn’t group as nicely as the others in this collection as it’s a very different cast size and length, but just in case someone was wondering why it wasn’t included, that’s why. 

Legacy vs Self-Publishing: How do you know which one is right for your work?

Short answer? It depends.

On the work, your plans for it, your platform and even the intended audience or content of the work itself.

This is a question I get all the time when I’m teaching writing workshops and, since this Tale of Tales series is basically the ideal opportunity to peel back the curtain and show you how the sauce is made, I wanted to make today’s post a little behind-the-scenes of this project specifically and why I choose this particular distribution configuration: a combo of legacy and indie published titles. 

Incidentally, this is exactly the kind of post I wanted to build this new mailing list around– ie one that is a little more “talking shop” than what I want to share with the general public– so if you want to read everything below this point you’ll need to make a free account and log in as the second part of this post is exclusive to subscribers only. 

(Note that I did add the option to make a monthly / yearly donation through Jetpack if you wish to support the site and my writing, but all you need is the free account to see the content below.)

The post New Omnibus Edition collects the five plays from the Fairly Obscure Fairy Tale Plays series all in one volume! appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Highlights in a hurry

• new free Chrome extension for the popular gamified writing site 4TheWords counts your writing on (nearly) any website
• extension promises total privacy: only counts the number of words and never the actual content
• take advantage of the writing RPG elements even without an account or create a free account to save your streak progress, loot and progress in quests
• this extension makes both offline and split screen writing with 4TheWords possible for the first time ever
• extends the free plan by giving you a workaround to the document limit

What is 4TheWords?

4TheWords is an RPG-style writing game where you progress in quests, earn loot and defeat monsters all with the words you write. It’s the best option for gameifying writing that I have ever seen and has become an essential part of my routine for keeping myself motivated.

Disclaimer that I am just a long time user who loves the product, NOT in any way a paid employee of 4TW, though I do help them out in a volunteer capacity which sometimes yield perks (ie such as I was part of the beta group for this extension). Though if you do decide to sign up and use my referral link, let me know one you’re set up and I’ll send you a free gift in thanks!

Did you know that 4TheWords now has a free option?

If you haven’t looked at them in a while, 4TheWords recently changed it’s subscription offer to include a free plan that allows users to use most site features completely for free. Need more battles or quest slots? Upgrades are available at both monthly, yearly and lifetime rates.

Even better? With this new extension you can actually start using the site right now without even creating an account, though you’ll need to create one if you want to save your progress or streak.

4TheWords… anywhere!

Previously, to take advantage of all the fun and gamification the site offered, you had to use the on-site editor which was, frankly, bare bones and limited when it came to formatting options.

All of that changes with this new Chrome extension that lets you take the same features that make 4TW great and use them on any website you choose. Simply indicate that you want a site to count, start your monster battle, and everything you write will count towards your progress without spying on what you’re writing.

Emails? Slides presentations? AO3 fanfic comments? Popular web-based processors like Ellipsus or Google Docs? Yup, write in any one of them and the extension will count your words in real time.

Works with all types of monster battles

The site has three main types of battles and you’ll be happy to know the extension works with all three…

• Normal: monsters have a set word count and when you reach that word count, the battle is done
• Endurance: monsters have a set time limit and you write without stopping until that time is up to win the battle
• Multiplayer: team up with other writers in either a public or private room and combine your efforts to take down a big monster together

So whatever kind works for your writing flow, you’re covered!

Most essential features are packed up To Go

While you can’t change your wardrobe, decorate your maps or chat in the forums from the extension, you can do everything else essential for battling monsters. Add monsters to your queue, use potions, toggle loop or auto-start on and off, flee or even hand in quests all without leaving the extension window.

And if you prefer to still use the website, everything syncs instantly so you can set things up on site and continue using the extension and everything will sync.

Shortcut or side panel

By default, the extension is just the little icon which changes as needed to indicate whether a battle is on going or not. I’d recommend pinning it simply because otherwise it’s really easy to forget if you have a monster battle running. This extension shows you the amount of words left in your battle, but NOT the time, so it’s not great for monsters with a really tight timer.

Because of this, I end up leaving the side panel open most of the time, even though I’d rather have that screen real estate back.

Stats

There are also basic optional stats that show you how much you wrote per site over the day, week, month, year and all time.

Biggest Advantages

4TheWords everywhere!

Well, mostly anyway. (We’ll get to that in a minute.) Being able to take advantage of the game without being stuck using the lackluster write screen is a huge improvement!

Use 4TheWords without an account

Just want to try it out? Love the fun of writing your way through a monster, but don’t want to commit by signing up? This is the first time ever there has been the option to play 4TheWords without having to make an account or sign up!

And, even if you do sign up, you can still use the site free if you’re not ready for an upgrade yet.

Extend the free plan

One of the most amazing things about this is how it extends the free plan! The free plan currently limits you to 25 files and two projects on site.

But with this extension, you can have an unlimited number of pages and projects using whatever external site you wish.

That’s huge!

(My daughter is on the free plan and this was life-changing for her!)

Split screen! Split screen!

One of the biggest drawbacks of writing on 4thewords is that you’ve never really been able to do split screen because it caused sync issues both between docs and word count. Well, now you can! Split screen between the main 4TheWords editor and an Ellipsus doc or your email or Google Docs or whatever you need to jump back and forth between an it will sync both properly and keep track of how many words you wrote in each, no problem!

I’m someone for whom split screen writing is an absolute must and I usually have to make due with the 4TheWords editor and Notepad open at the same time, so this is big one for me!

4TheWords Offline

There has never been a way to play 4TheWords offline before and this extension finally gives it to us!

Keeps track of how much you wrote on each site (optional)

I tested this app out on a big day of doing digital errands and I loved that it was able to tell me how many of my words where on that slideshow vs email vs in my document.

Lets me chaotically jump around from thing to thing and trust that I can look back later and see how many words went where.

(Which really sort of begs the question: why can’t the main site do this? Word count per on-site document just like this has been so long requested!)

Multiplayer minder

One of the most annoying things about co-op mode is waiting around for other players to join you because you can’t really do anything else in the meantime. Because this extension shows you right in the side panel if there is someone in your room or not, it makes it much easier to go off and do other tasks while still keeping an eye on when your battle will start.

Disadvantages

Ugh, but only Chrome?

So far, yeah. Which sucks because I, frankly, am not a Chrome user. Google’s privacy is a nightmare, its is slow and bloated, it’s basically my last choice for browsing. At the end of the day, all the privacy promises in the world from 4TW aren’t worth anything if I can only use this extension in the browser most known for spying on users.

But I agreed to help them test this out in Chrome, because I have faith that now that they have built the thing, they will start to work towards porting it to other more secure and privacy forward browsers.

And, with how slick this thing works, it also hints a 4TheWords anywhere download app that works offline might be in the pipeline too.

As someone who does most of their writing offline in programs like Scrivener and Writality, being able to use 4TheWords while writing directly in those offline programs would completely change the game for me and this extension makes me hope that is on the horizon.

(Edited to add: their news post today indicated that desktop is for sure on the way as well as other Chromium browsers, though no word in Firefox yet!)

Doesn’t work with self-hosted WordPress

One of the main things I was excited about with this was being able to write my blog posts directly into my blog and have it count. We were even promise it could during the beta testing.

But, alas, it doesn’t work with self-hosted WordPress which is what all my blogs are. That significantly reduces the usefulness of it for bloggers, though it does work on other platforms including WordPress.org and Tumblr.

Indicator isn’t very helpful without side panel

My biggest issue with this is that— in minimized mode— the extension shows only how many words are left when it would be far more useful if it also showed how much time is left. Because of this, you can really only use this with a monster with a long timer or in side panel mode so you can see both how much words AND time is left.

And the side panel takes up a more room than it really needs to so it would be preferable if I didn’t need to keep it open.

—

Overall? It’s a really cool little extension. I love that it’s something people can play with without having an account, that it extends the possibilities for not just the free plan but everyone with split screen.

Of course, nifty as it is, I will probably never use it because I’m not a Chrome user. And that really dampens my enthusiasm for it, especially since there has been no announcement about when we’ll get it for other browsers.

That said, this is slick enough that it gives me hope we will see more features like this in the future not just for other browsers but for desktop use and I think that could really extend the functionality for a lot of people.

(For authenticity, I wrote this entire blog post in Ellipsus letting the extension count my words)

Use my referral link for a free gift!

Just to reiterate what I said above, I get a unique ability to send you a free gift if you sign up using my referral link so, please, let me know if you do so I can send you some free loot in thanks!

Here is the official extension text

Track your words across any website. Every word counts toward your 4thewords battles.

Turn any website into a writing RPG.

4thewords makes the writing itself the game. Pick a monster, start typing, and every word you write deals damage. Beat the word count before the timer runs out and the monster falls, dropping loot. Miss it, and the monster wins this round. Pick another and go again. Every word is a weapon.

The Chrome extension brings the game to wherever you already write: Google Docs, Notion, Substack, WordPress, AO3, and any site you choose (even your email drafts). Your writing tools stay exactly the same. The monsters just follow you there. START IN TEN SECONDS, NO ACCOUNT NEEDED Install, open a site where you write, and fight your first monster immediately. Four starter monsters, full word counting, and a local streak work with no signup at all. When you are ready, a free account unlocks the full game: a world of 900+ hand-painted monsters, quests, co-op battles, and a streak that syncs everywhere you write.

KEY FEATURES

• Fight monsters while you write, on the sites you choose
• Hundreds of hand-painted monsters with different word counts and time limits (4 starters with no account)
• Build your daily writing streak, 444 words at a time
• Battle queue: line up monsters and auto-start the next one when the first falls
• Endurance mode: the monster attacks, and your words are the defense
• Co-op battles: fight alongside other writers in shared battle rooms
• Quests with multi-battle storylines
• Earn loot, XP, and Coins for every battle won
• See where your words go: per-site stats by day, week, month, year, or all time
• A side panel companion that keeps score while you write
• 7 color themes, from Pearl light to Obsidian dark
• Offline mode: keep playing entirely on your own device
• Syncs with your full 4thewords account

YOU CHOOSE WHERE IT COUNTS

The extension counts words only on sites you allow. Nineteen writing-first sites are on by default, including Google Docs, Notion, Substack, Medium, WordPress, AO3, Overleaf, Word on the web, Scrivener-style tools like Novlr and NovelPad, Reedsy, Evernote, Coda, and World Anvil. Adding any other site takes one click. Everywhere else, it counts nothing.

YOUR WORDS STAY YOURS

• It never reads, stores, or transmits the text you write. Counting works on word boundaries, not content.
• Password fields, one-time codes, card numbers, and other sensitive inputs are excluded at four independent layers.
• Site names and document titles stay on your device unless you switch on “Word counting by site”, which is off by default and reversible at any time.
• Zero analytics libraries, no ads, no trackers. Fonts ship inside the extension, so the popup and side panel open with no third-party requests. One exception, and it is the only one: the “Words by site” list fetches site icons from Google’s favicon service, cached on your device.
• We never train AI on your words or your writing data. Our monsters are painted by humans, and your words are written by you.

WHO IT’S FOR

• Novelists chasing daily word counts
• Students and academics with papers that will not write themselves
• Journalers and bloggers building a daily habit – Anyone whose blank page keeps winning
• Former NaNoWriMo participants who want the challenge year-round

HOW IT WORKS

1. Install. No account needed to start.

2. Open a site where you write.

3. Click the 4thewords icon and pick a monster.

4. Write. Every word deals damage.

5. Win the battle, claim the loot, keep the streak alive.

FREE TO START

Start free with no card, ever. Bring the monsters to where you write, and see what you finish. Questions or feedback? help.4thewords.com

Download 4TheWords Chrome Extension

And here is the official announcement they made on site, along with a special event!

4thewords Chrome Extension: Everywhere, All at Once! 

Dust Warriors, 

We’ve been crafting something amazing behind the scenes, a new way to use 4thewords, and it’s ready for launch! Welcome to a new age of monster battles and word counting with… 

Our 4thewords Chrome Extension!

Fight monsters from anywhere on the internet! Yes, this means exactly what you think it means: you no longer have to write in the 4thewords editor or copy/paste for credit.

Think about the freedom!

• Brainstorming or planning on Google Docs?
• Worldbuilding on World Anvil or Campfire? 
• Fixing fanfiction in A03 or Fanfiction.net?
• Getting word credits for finally answering emails?

No matter where you are, as long as you enable tracking by site (more on that below), it’ll count your words and sync your progress back to 4thewords.

Install the 4thewords: Fight Monsters While You Write extension from the Chrome Web Store, connect it to your account, and it’ll start counting immediately.

Its lightweight, but powerful:

• Counts your words & syncs back to 4TW
• Fights monsters from all three battle modes (regular, endurance, & co-op)
• Manages your battle queue & adds new monsters
• Sees progress for Streaks and daily challenges
• Tracks & delivers Quests
• Sees where you’re writing (enable “Tracking by site,” which is off by default)
• & much more

The extension is free, available on all plans, and we’ve even made it work without a 4TW account (for any friends who might want to try it out)! 

Install it today for free from the Chrome Web Store.

A Note On Privacy

We count words. We don’t read them, and we absolutely do not train AI on anything you write. That doesn’t change with the extension. It still counts, and it still doesn’t read.

These words are still yours, and will stay yours.

Extension Guide

If you need help or have questions, we have a new Extension section in our Help Center. 

The extension is pretty new, and although we had help testing (thank you wonderful Beta testers), there can still be a few things to iron out. If you notice anything please help us by reporting it here.

What If I Don’t Use Chrome? What’s Next!

The Chrome extension is the first in a series of apps we’re planning on releasing so we can continue to expand the borders of 4thewords.

We’ll be working on improving compatibility with other Chromium based browsers (Opera, Brave, Edge, etc). We hope to have this same extension working on many of those browsers in the next few weeks.

Later this year we’re planning to release light-weight desktop apps for Windows & Mac computers. These apps will allow us to cover other browsers (Firefox, Safari, etc) as well as native apps that live outside the browser (Scrivener, Word, notepad, etc). We’ll share more on this in the next few months.

While we’ll continue to improve our own writing editor (big update in the next month), our goal is to meet you where you prefer to write, rather than force you to write with us.

Wherever you write, as long as you are writing, you can track and earn credit with 4thewords.

We’re reaching out to writing, world-building, tracking apps, and communities so we can ensure we’re counting words and progress correctly wherever you are. If you have ideas for who we can reach out to, or places where we’re not counting that we should, please have them reach out or let us know by email at: developer@4thewords.com. 

Install it today for free from the Chrome Web Store, we hope you enjoy it!

The post Use 4TheWords to count your writing anywhere on the web with the new Chrome browser extension! appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

Aug 3- Aug 14, 2026

Hearts Through History [Forum Workshop]

Beginner writers all suffer the same challenges: passive characters, uneven pacing, meandering plot and the dreaded “Happy People in Happyland.” Readers crave active protagonists, characters who chase their goals and drive the story forward with the choices they make in the face of adversity. Non-stop action can be just as boring as a story where nothing happens. Finding that balance between action and reaction is the key to writing a character driven story that’s full of delicious page turning tension.

In this workshop, we’ll delve into scene structure and how understanding the cause-and-effect trajectory of your character’s journey not only strengthens your novel’s conflict and internal story logic, but also means richer, more three-dimensional characters. Whether you’re a discovery writer letting your characters take the reins or hardcore plotter writing to narrative goalposts, you’ll find that understanding scene structure can be a key part of your prep process, the secret to better flashlight drafting, a gut check to guide your revision, or a tool for diagnosing story issues and beating writer’s block.

The post Unlock the Power of Action and Reaction (Understanding Scene and Sequel): Aug 3- Aug 14, 2026 [Forum Workshop] appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

The post Sorry about that, Jetpack is freaking out appeared first on Hillary DePiano.

The Master Class writing workshop I was meant to be teaching at WriterUniv starting on June 15th has been cancelled. A bummer, but I think ultimately for the best because a) I severely injured myself (more on that in a minute) and should probably be doing less and b) I’m teaching an abbreviated form of this same material in a Zoom Workshop at RWO in October which is only $15 which, less than the original workshop would have been so yay savings! 

The August workshop on Advanced Self-Publishing has changed to Scene and Sequel. That Action and Reaction workshop has quickly become one of my most popular and Hearts Through History originally wanted that one, but I couldn’t offer it at the time because it was scheduled elsewhere. But schedules moved around, that slot became available again, so they decided to switch things around and snag it now and move Advanced Self-Publishing to next year. But that one is also just $15 for a 2-Week Workshop so I highly recommend snagging it as that’s great value for what I think you’ll find a very valuable workshop. 

Writing ergonomics post delayed until I heal. The continued saga of trying to upgrade my writing set-up to be more ergonomic has hit a new wrinkle in that I am in so much pain already from my injuries and pain meds are masking all the smaller issues, I have NO idea which parts of my set-up are working or not anymore. Which is at once depressing and honestly kind of hilarious. So that big breakdown will have to wait a few months until I can actually pinpoint what is actually helping vs hurting vs completely unrelated to my writing set up whatsoever. 

New Donation Button. I mentioned in this post that I had no intention of making a paid newsletter in the immediate future and that is still true, but some people were interested in tossing some coins my way anyway so I added a donation button on the sidebar just in case you found value in my posts and wanted to keep me in tea.  

I broke myself. So, yeah, I was in an accident and got seriously hurt. First time riding in an ambulance so there’s a milestone, I guess. I don’t really want to go into it because the events surrounding it were very traumatizing and I’m still shaken up about it, but basically everything is very difficult right now and recovery is looking like months not weeks. 

I’m trying to gaslight myself that this is fine. 

Anyway, while I’m a busted excuse for a human being, I wanted to take this moment to open up the floor to all of you and make sure some of the first posts in this newsletter are exactly what you want to see. 

What’s on your mind?

It’s funny to me that Tumblr and WordPress are owned by the same company because Tumblr has two features this platform badly needs.

The first is the post queue so I could just throw finished posts into a queue and trust they would automatically update on a schedule I set and only if I didn’t have a post already scheduled for that week. (I have even tried to hire someone to build me this as a plugin, because it would fit my work flow soooo well, but alas.)

The second is Tumblr’s ask feature that makes it easy for people to submit questions and comments (even anonymously!) so I can easily reply via blog post for everyone to see the answer. I would love that for this site because it would enable me to easily bring back the mailbag feature without people feeling put on the spot because they have to ask under their real name. The search for a good plugin that can give me this continues. Mailbag posts are basically the easiest thing for me right now because I can answer them with my dear friend voice-to-text. 

In the meantime, however, we at least have the comment box below! 

So please take a moment to ask a question or request a topic let me know what kind of content you’d like to see from this new and improved version of Unpublishable Pennings and I’d be happy to make your question the topic of a future newsletter so we can all learn from the answer! 

The post Teaching schedule changes and I broke myself appeared first on Hillary DePiano.