Day 78: Technical difficulties; a calm, clear mind
I spent most of yesterday just reading to refill the creative well, so I didn’t post.
Today the weather was awful again, but we set up a portable air conditioning unit in the bedroom and I got some work done.
Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties with my Zoom H1n Portable Recorder, although I shouldn’t say it was the recorder’s fault—I had put some rechargeable batteries in it, which I thought were fully charged, but apparently they weren’t because they died at some point while I was dictating (and I was too into the dictating to even notice) so I lost about 20-30 minutes of work. Talk about frustrating! After I finished re-doing the entire scene I’d lost, I stopped work for the day to start cooking dinner.
But I managed to get over 4000 words per hour, which is great! I probably won’t keep all of what I dictated because it’s really terrible, but it’s rather a relief to at least get the rough ideas down so that I can edit it later.
Not all my writing time was spent dictating—I also counted the time I spent doing some blocking and also transcribing with Dragon (I probably should have stopped the timer when Dragon was transcribing).
I read an article yesterday about clearing your mind in order to be able to write with clarity. It reminded me of some other articles I’d read that talked about doing meditation before writing, which I had forgotten about.
I can totally see how a calm, centered mind can help focus for writing. I sort of did it today—I spent some time knitting and listening to an audiobook before I did my dictation, and the dictation seemed a bit easier.
For me, writing is so much harder than outlining, so it makes sense that my mind needs to be calm and clear before I can be focused enough to write well. I need to remember this and try to do this in future.
Time spent writing: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 43 minutes
My takeaway for today: REMEMBER TO LOOK AT YOUR RECORDER TO MAKE SURE IT’S STILL RECORDING, WOMAN!
My second takeaway for today: Do something to calm and clear my mind before I start writing to make it easier to focus.
Today the weather was awful again, but we set up a portable air conditioning unit in the bedroom and I got some work done.
Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties with my Zoom H1n Portable Recorder, although I shouldn’t say it was the recorder’s fault—I had put some rechargeable batteries in it, which I thought were fully charged, but apparently they weren’t because they died at some point while I was dictating (and I was too into the dictating to even notice) so I lost about 20-30 minutes of work. Talk about frustrating! After I finished re-doing the entire scene I’d lost, I stopped work for the day to start cooking dinner.
But I managed to get over 4000 words per hour, which is great! I probably won’t keep all of what I dictated because it’s really terrible, but it’s rather a relief to at least get the rough ideas down so that I can edit it later.
Not all my writing time was spent dictating—I also counted the time I spent doing some blocking and also transcribing with Dragon (I probably should have stopped the timer when Dragon was transcribing).
I read an article yesterday about clearing your mind in order to be able to write with clarity. It reminded me of some other articles I’d read that talked about doing meditation before writing, which I had forgotten about.
I can totally see how a calm, centered mind can help focus for writing. I sort of did it today—I spent some time knitting and listening to an audiobook before I did my dictation, and the dictation seemed a bit easier.
For me, writing is so much harder than outlining, so it makes sense that my mind needs to be calm and clear before I can be focused enough to write well. I need to remember this and try to do this in future.
Time spent writing: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 43 minutes
My takeaway for today: REMEMBER TO LOOK AT YOUR RECORDER TO MAKE SURE IT’S STILL RECORDING, WOMAN!
My second takeaway for today: Do something to calm and clear my mind before I start writing to make it easier to focus.
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