Day 66: Verdict on dictation exercises

-
I got up super early (as in, it’s the middle of the night) and felt better so I decided to do a few exercises in the Fool Proof Dictation book with my manuscript. The results will be messy and in extreme need of editing, but at least it will be forward momentum on writing my book, which is better than nothing.

***

I decided to skip exercise #5 in the dictation book because honestly, I don’t see the point of it. The author also never mentions why this exercise is important or what it does to help you.

Surprisingly, exercise #8 was the most fun and most nerve-wracking, and I’m sure my prose was by far the worst, but it was really good to make me try thinking ahead of my dictation.

Exercises #9 and #10 made me realize the value of being able to dictate a scene more than once. It also made me realize that I need at least one pass through the scene to dictate the highlights of it so that I myself know where to go. My problem is my terrible memory, so I might dictate directly into Dragon so that I have those scene highlights transcribed and can refer to them as I do my second pass.

The exercises I found most helpful as warm-ups were exercises 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. Exercise #1 was the most effective at loosening things up in my brain and helping to turn off the internal editor.

However, getting up super early means I’m tired early. I’m going to take a nap.

***

UGH my IBS got worse so I’m going to just do writing-related work and give up on any writing today.

***

Got a lot done, mostly tedious work that eventually needed to be done but wasn’t urgent.

Time spent writing: 2 hours, 13 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 7 hours, 47 minutes

My takeaway for today: Doing the dictation exercises with my manuscript resulted in very messy first draft writing, but it helped me continue the forward momentum of working on my manuscript.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 783: Evaluation 7

-
It’s been almost seven months since I wrote my last Evaluation 6 , but I finally got around to Evaluation #7! Here’s the gist of what I’ve learned over the past few months about my writing and productivity. New schedule My IBS was slowly been starting to feel better recently. I am still extremely strict with my diet, but I am also starting to experiment with what foods I can and can’t eat. I have also started a new eating and sleeping schedule, which I have dubbed my “chrono-diet” because I’m trying to take advantage of my circadian rhythm, according to the book Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life (I had borrowed a copy from the library but I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and bought it). I have started waking up at 6 am and exercising first thing, then having breakfast after exercise. I do house chores and/or work until noon, which is when I eat lunch. I’m supposed to not eat until dinner around 5:30 or 6, but I haven’t been able to break the habit of snacking in the aftern...
Read more

Day 252: Evaluation 5

-
It’s been a while since I’ve done an evaluation, so I figured I was overdue. In no particular order: Good health = good work I had some really bad health issues lately that kept me from writing entirely. However, I found it strange that I’ve been feeling very creative and motivated yesterday and today, despite getting in a lot of work hours yesterday. I think it’s because I haven’t had any IBS issues for the first time in a couple weeks. Not even a little discomfort. This is kind of duh! in hindsight, but I think I underestimated how much my IBS was affecting my energy levels. I’ve been careful about what I ate, but I was also trying to figure out exactly what I could and couldn’t eat, so it resulted in some bad IBS bouts. So now I know I really need to be strict about what I’m putting in my mouth so that my health doesn’t adversely affect my energy for work! Sprints Another sort of duh! moment in hindsight, but sprints have been helping me with my productivity. At f...
Read more

Day 21: Bullet journal, Surrender statement

-
Today was my writing Sabbath so I didn’t do any writing today, but I spent a lot of time doing writing-related things. I did some blogging, and I also reviewed my writing To Do list. I cleaned it up by checking off what’s been done, deleting what I no longer need to do, and making note of what I need to do this coming week. Before I started bullet journaling (in an electronic journal app, Day One Journal ), I had my To Do lists in a couple different places and I’d usually forget things I needed to do. Now I have them in my bullet journal, which combines journaling with task organizer, and I’m less likely to forget. I still set reminders for myself in my phone, but since I’m using my journal throughout the day every day, I’m more likely to see things I need to do. I found some of my old To Do lists today and incorporated some things in my bullet journal. One of them was my writing Surrender Statement, which is a prayer I pray before starting each day’s work. What’s a Surrender Sta...
Read more