Day 269: Social media before lunch; dictation again
I might have come up with a series premise yesterday, I’m not entirely sure. I’ll have to do more brainstorming today. I think I have all the characters, though, and I know how many books there will be in the series.
I should visit the blogs on my blog tour today, but for the past several days, I’ve noticed that I don’t get back into work very easily when I do that. I think it’s best for me to focus on work first before I dive into social media, because otherwise I get distracted and a little stressed.
I think the older I get, the more I find myself sticking my head in the sand when it comes to stress. If I don’t know about it, it doesn’t stress me out. So I avoid things that I know will cause me stress until I’ve finished my work and the stress won’t affect my writing productivity.
Until the blog tour started, I was able to get away with avoiding social media completely except for weekends, but since I feel is should visit the blogs on my tour as it’s going on, I’ve had to incorporate social media into every day, which is not ideal.
I had forgotten that I’d wanted to write a little fiction every day even when I was doing outlining or blocking, so I’ll try to write about 500 words on the side novel for my series, The Spinster Spy.
***
Since I’ve been trying to figure out a way to write faster and also maybe relieve some stress from my wrists and shoulder, I decided to try doing the writing via dictation.
Even though I only did a 15 minute writing sprint, I spent about 45 minutes with some computer problems with Windows, then in looking over what I’d written before to reacquaint myself with it, since it’s been two months since I last worked on this book. I admit I also spent some time transferring the previous writing to a new Scrivener file that was properly formatted, so that it would be easier for me later to compile the .epub and .doc files.
My writing speed wasn’t great, only 1400 words per hour, and when I look at the amount of words I wrote in the total time I spent working on it (about an hour), my overall writing speed was a dismal 365 words per hour. But I’ve only just started using dictation again, so hopefully my writing speed can increase gradually.
I did the dictation directly into Dragon rather that doing a voice recording and transcribing it. This is probably also one reason why my writing speed was slower—I noticed that it picks up when I’m doing recording/transcription. I also found myself correcting typos while writing, but it’s the same sort of correction I’d do while typing. I didn’t do other types of editing, such as looking up research points or synonyms for words.
I found it maybe a bit easier to do dictation when I could see the words as I spoke them. It felt more like when I’m typing.
Also, before when I would record a dictation session, I sometimes had difficulty remembering exactly what I’d just said, and so I’d end up just repeating myself, but when I’m dictating into Dragon, I would instead write like I do when typing, and correct the sentence to what exactly I wanted to write. I’m sure it makes for faster writing if I just repeated myself, although the editing later would take up time, too.
Maybe next time I do dictation, I’ll try repeating myself instead and just editing it right after the sprint. It might help me get into flow more easily.
However, at this point, I think I prefer dictating directly into Dragon rather than trying to train myself to do recordings and transcribe them, even though I read that recordings usually enable you to write faster, and that transcription is much more accurate. However, for me, since I’m a visual person, seeing the sentences on the computer screen helps me gather my thoughts and figure out where I want to go next. And since it’s more like typing, it doesn’t seem as strange (and maybe as stressful) as recording my dictation session.
Eventually maybe I’ll feel more comfortable with recording my dictation, but for now I think I’ll dictate into Dragon.
***
I finally did check social media just before I ate lunch, and it was easier and not quite as stressful since I’d already done some work for the day. Also, I had lunch to rest and relax, and then after lunch I was ready to get back into work.
I did more brainstorming on the Hawaii series, although I found I needed to do more characterization, so I didn’t quite nail down the series premise yet.
Last night, I did some editing on my Japanese Spinster’s Christmas, but since it was after midnight, I’m including the totals here.
Outlining: time spent: 3 hours, 46 minutes (Hawaii series)
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 17 minutes (Japanese Spinster’s Christmas)
Writing: Time spent: 54 minutes (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Total number of words: 329 words (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Average speed (sprints): 1410 words per hour (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Overall writing speed: 365 words per hour (Spinster Spy)
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 49 minutes
My takeaway for today: It might affect my writing less if I do stressful things like checking email and social media right before lunch, then I can use lunch to rest and relax.
My second takeaway for today: Dictating directly into the Dragon program may not be as fast as recording and transcription, but since I am a visual person, it seems more like typing and less of a jarring transition from writing with a keyboard.
I should visit the blogs on my blog tour today, but for the past several days, I’ve noticed that I don’t get back into work very easily when I do that. I think it’s best for me to focus on work first before I dive into social media, because otherwise I get distracted and a little stressed.
I think the older I get, the more I find myself sticking my head in the sand when it comes to stress. If I don’t know about it, it doesn’t stress me out. So I avoid things that I know will cause me stress until I’ve finished my work and the stress won’t affect my writing productivity.
Until the blog tour started, I was able to get away with avoiding social media completely except for weekends, but since I feel is should visit the blogs on my tour as it’s going on, I’ve had to incorporate social media into every day, which is not ideal.
I had forgotten that I’d wanted to write a little fiction every day even when I was doing outlining or blocking, so I’ll try to write about 500 words on the side novel for my series, The Spinster Spy.
***
Since I’ve been trying to figure out a way to write faster and also maybe relieve some stress from my wrists and shoulder, I decided to try doing the writing via dictation.
Even though I only did a 15 minute writing sprint, I spent about 45 minutes with some computer problems with Windows, then in looking over what I’d written before to reacquaint myself with it, since it’s been two months since I last worked on this book. I admit I also spent some time transferring the previous writing to a new Scrivener file that was properly formatted, so that it would be easier for me later to compile the .epub and .doc files.
My writing speed wasn’t great, only 1400 words per hour, and when I look at the amount of words I wrote in the total time I spent working on it (about an hour), my overall writing speed was a dismal 365 words per hour. But I’ve only just started using dictation again, so hopefully my writing speed can increase gradually.
I did the dictation directly into Dragon rather that doing a voice recording and transcribing it. This is probably also one reason why my writing speed was slower—I noticed that it picks up when I’m doing recording/transcription. I also found myself correcting typos while writing, but it’s the same sort of correction I’d do while typing. I didn’t do other types of editing, such as looking up research points or synonyms for words.
I found it maybe a bit easier to do dictation when I could see the words as I spoke them. It felt more like when I’m typing.
Also, before when I would record a dictation session, I sometimes had difficulty remembering exactly what I’d just said, and so I’d end up just repeating myself, but when I’m dictating into Dragon, I would instead write like I do when typing, and correct the sentence to what exactly I wanted to write. I’m sure it makes for faster writing if I just repeated myself, although the editing later would take up time, too.
Maybe next time I do dictation, I’ll try repeating myself instead and just editing it right after the sprint. It might help me get into flow more easily.
However, at this point, I think I prefer dictating directly into Dragon rather than trying to train myself to do recordings and transcribe them, even though I read that recordings usually enable you to write faster, and that transcription is much more accurate. However, for me, since I’m a visual person, seeing the sentences on the computer screen helps me gather my thoughts and figure out where I want to go next. And since it’s more like typing, it doesn’t seem as strange (and maybe as stressful) as recording my dictation session.
Eventually maybe I’ll feel more comfortable with recording my dictation, but for now I think I’ll dictate into Dragon.
***
I finally did check social media just before I ate lunch, and it was easier and not quite as stressful since I’d already done some work for the day. Also, I had lunch to rest and relax, and then after lunch I was ready to get back into work.
I did more brainstorming on the Hawaii series, although I found I needed to do more characterization, so I didn’t quite nail down the series premise yet.
Last night, I did some editing on my Japanese Spinster’s Christmas, but since it was after midnight, I’m including the totals here.
Outlining: time spent: 3 hours, 46 minutes (Hawaii series)
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 1 hour, 17 minutes (Japanese Spinster’s Christmas)
Writing: Time spent: 54 minutes (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Total number of words: 329 words (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Average speed (sprints): 1410 words per hour (Spinster Spy)
Writing: Overall writing speed: 365 words per hour (Spinster Spy)
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 49 minutes
My takeaway for today: It might affect my writing less if I do stressful things like checking email and social media right before lunch, then I can use lunch to rest and relax.
My second takeaway for today: Dictating directly into the Dragon program may not be as fast as recording and transcription, but since I am a visual person, it seems more like typing and less of a jarring transition from writing with a keyboard.
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