Day 510: Dictation: aim for an easy target number
For once I didn’t wake up with health issues! Praise God! I even got a chance to go for a walk today. I already did my Japanese study and am ready to dive into work.
Path of least resistance
I did my 100 words of writing yesterday on my computer, and in thinking about it today, I realized that one of the reasons dictation has been difficult for me is because typing is so much easier to do. I’ve made it easy by keeping the microphone plugged in, but it takes time and (a little bit of frustration) to fire up Dragon in order to transpose the recording, and then taking the time to edit it.
With typing, on the other hand, I eliminate the Dragon transpose step, and the editing step is much faster because my typing has less errors, so it’s easier to edit what I’ve typed.
However, if I get much better at dictation, I’ll be able to write more in a shorter time period, and if I can dictate more cleanly, the editing won’t be quite as bad as it is now. So eventually, words per hour will (hopefully) be greater with dictation, even with the time requirement for transposing and editing.
Unfortunately, I’m not there yet, so the process of dictating is still much more troublesome than just starting writing in Scrivener.
Time tracking
Part of the trouble with the dictation right now is that I’m also trying to keep track of my word count and the time I spend writing and editing. It’s necessary so that I can know, for certain, how long it takes me to write something. If I don’t measure my productivity, I don’t know if I’m actually being productive.
But that extra step or two to track my time and word count makes my writing time a bit annoying. I’ve spoken to writing friends who absolutely CANNOT and WILL NOT record their writing times and word counts because it’s so irritating and difficult for them to do. I don’t find it difficult to do, but I do understand how it’s irritating.
Right now, I’m tracking every time I start and stop outlining, blocking, writing, and editing, so that I know how long each part of the process took.
However, this time tracking is important to me especially because I’m comparing typing and dictating, and the writing and editing portions take different amounts of time depending on if I’m using my keyboard or microphone.
It has also made me aware that for this book, at least, I’m taking much longer to do the blocking than I did for the previous 2 books. When I realized that, it made me try to step up my pace when I’m blocking so that I don’t linger too long over it.
So for me, this time tracking has helped my productivity. But I can see how for another writer, it would just be an annoyance.
(If I were recommending this to someone else, I would simplify it. I would suggest they only use something like Toggl where they just have to click a button when they start writing and click a button when they’re done. Then when the book is done, Toggl will automatically tell them the number of hours it took them and they can compare that to the number of words the book ended up being. They’ll know that a XX word book took YY hours. This method would combine outlining, writing, editing. If a writer were comparing different writing methods or routines, they would have to do it per book, but they could see the results in comparing how many hours a book took with one method over the other.)
How my time tracking might help with dictation
ANYWAY, the reason my thoughts went on that time tracking tangent today was because I was also thinking about my time totals for the previous two books and how dictation might change that.
Right now, it took about 45 hours to block each book, about 90 hours to write about 90,000 words, and about 35 hours to edit each book. So my average writing speed was 1000 words per hour, and my average editing speed was a little less than 2600 words per hour.
If dictation can increase my writing speed so that it will only take me 45 hours to write a book, even if my editing time doubles to 70 hours, I’m still ahead in terms of how long it takes me to write a book.
So I guess that’s what I’m aiming for in terms of dictation: dictating at least 2000 words per hour, and have it be clean enough that I'm able to edit at least 1300 words per hour.
When I look at the numbers like that, it actually seems very doable. I’m pretty sure I could very easily get at least 2000 words per hour with dictation, which kind of takes some of the pressure off of me.
I also did a quick and dirty calculation of how many words per hour I was able to edit for the 3 dictation sessions I’ve done, and the average is already about 1200 words/hour. (This didn’t take into account the couple hours I was fighting with Dragon to get it to work and recognize my microphone, but I think that’s okay not to count it because hopefully Dragon will work all right from now on.)
Making the dictation clean will be the bigger and more important challenge. A clean dictation will make the editing easier, which will then make the editing more thorough and thoughtful than if it’s a hot mess.
I’ve recently been reading a writing motivation book written from a psychological perspective. While most of the book is pretty dry and boring, I learned that my personality is such that having numerical values to record and to aim for is what motivates me.
So these numbers for me to aim for in dictation—dictating 2000 words per hour, editing 1300 words per hour—have actually made me feel very positive about the whole dictation thing, even though it’s so difficult for me to dictate right now.
For now, I’m still doing only one dictation session/sprint per day because I want to focus on blocking the current book and the rest of this series so I won’t be so confused with the timeline when I’m writing. I think it would be a lot easier if I were blocking a different series while writing this book. When I was writing on Saturday, I wrote about a particular group, but then couldn’t remember if I’d already written about them, or if I was just remembering what I’d blocked about for a later chapter. It kind of jolted me out of my writing zone (not that I was really all that in the zone, but it did make me take a mental shift away from the story).
***
Quality of writing
I’m not terribly happy with the writing I did today. It seems kind of clunky to me, maybe because I didn’t see the sentences as I was writing them, and editing them after the fact is definitely harder than editing them as I’m writing them.
I wonder if I should instead write directly in Dragon so that I can adjust the sentences as I write them? I know that I’m very visually oriented, so dictating into a recording without seeing my sentences is a bit jarring. I could perhaps train myself to eventually dictate without looking at my sentences, but for now, at least, maybe I should dictate in Dragon so I see my sentences.
Dictating in Dragon directly is not as accurate as transcribing the recording, because when transcribing, the program does several passes over the audio before transcribing it, whereas when dictating into Dragon, it only does one pass. But I think I’d be okay with that, especially because I can also use the time to train Dragon in words it keeps getting wrong. I try to do that after transcribing the recording, but I miss words that Dragon make mistakes on and don’t realize it until I’m doing the editing in Scrivener.
Also, I’m trying to tell myself that the writing doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m in the middle of writing an epic serial novel for a commercial audience, and every sentence does not need to be Nobel Prize winning quality. I simply need to convey the characters’ feelings and keep the plot running smoothly.
Also, since it’s commercial romance fiction, it’s likely that the readers will be reading the book quickly rather than slowly taking in each sentence. A clunky section of writing is not going to ruin the entire book.
***
I’m really happy with the blocking I got done today. I ended up writing past midnight, but I’m going to back date this and post this for Monday’s post.
Writing: Time spent: 30 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1077 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 2136 words/hour
Writing streak: 23 days
Editing: Time spent: 44 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 31 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: (forgot to set Toggl timer)
My takeaway for today: Calculating a target for dictation makes it seem much more doable and helps me feel a bit more positive about it, even though it’s difficult.
My second takeaway for today: Try dictating directly in Dragon to see if that makes the writing a little easier.
Path of least resistance
I did my 100 words of writing yesterday on my computer, and in thinking about it today, I realized that one of the reasons dictation has been difficult for me is because typing is so much easier to do. I’ve made it easy by keeping the microphone plugged in, but it takes time and (a little bit of frustration) to fire up Dragon in order to transpose the recording, and then taking the time to edit it.
With typing, on the other hand, I eliminate the Dragon transpose step, and the editing step is much faster because my typing has less errors, so it’s easier to edit what I’ve typed.
However, if I get much better at dictation, I’ll be able to write more in a shorter time period, and if I can dictate more cleanly, the editing won’t be quite as bad as it is now. So eventually, words per hour will (hopefully) be greater with dictation, even with the time requirement for transposing and editing.
Unfortunately, I’m not there yet, so the process of dictating is still much more troublesome than just starting writing in Scrivener.
Time tracking
Part of the trouble with the dictation right now is that I’m also trying to keep track of my word count and the time I spend writing and editing. It’s necessary so that I can know, for certain, how long it takes me to write something. If I don’t measure my productivity, I don’t know if I’m actually being productive.
But that extra step or two to track my time and word count makes my writing time a bit annoying. I’ve spoken to writing friends who absolutely CANNOT and WILL NOT record their writing times and word counts because it’s so irritating and difficult for them to do. I don’t find it difficult to do, but I do understand how it’s irritating.
Right now, I’m tracking every time I start and stop outlining, blocking, writing, and editing, so that I know how long each part of the process took.
However, this time tracking is important to me especially because I’m comparing typing and dictating, and the writing and editing portions take different amounts of time depending on if I’m using my keyboard or microphone.
It has also made me aware that for this book, at least, I’m taking much longer to do the blocking than I did for the previous 2 books. When I realized that, it made me try to step up my pace when I’m blocking so that I don’t linger too long over it.
So for me, this time tracking has helped my productivity. But I can see how for another writer, it would just be an annoyance.
(If I were recommending this to someone else, I would simplify it. I would suggest they only use something like Toggl where they just have to click a button when they start writing and click a button when they’re done. Then when the book is done, Toggl will automatically tell them the number of hours it took them and they can compare that to the number of words the book ended up being. They’ll know that a XX word book took YY hours. This method would combine outlining, writing, editing. If a writer were comparing different writing methods or routines, they would have to do it per book, but they could see the results in comparing how many hours a book took with one method over the other.)
How my time tracking might help with dictation
ANYWAY, the reason my thoughts went on that time tracking tangent today was because I was also thinking about my time totals for the previous two books and how dictation might change that.
Right now, it took about 45 hours to block each book, about 90 hours to write about 90,000 words, and about 35 hours to edit each book. So my average writing speed was 1000 words per hour, and my average editing speed was a little less than 2600 words per hour.
If dictation can increase my writing speed so that it will only take me 45 hours to write a book, even if my editing time doubles to 70 hours, I’m still ahead in terms of how long it takes me to write a book.
So I guess that’s what I’m aiming for in terms of dictation: dictating at least 2000 words per hour, and have it be clean enough that I'm able to edit at least 1300 words per hour.
When I look at the numbers like that, it actually seems very doable. I’m pretty sure I could very easily get at least 2000 words per hour with dictation, which kind of takes some of the pressure off of me.
I also did a quick and dirty calculation of how many words per hour I was able to edit for the 3 dictation sessions I’ve done, and the average is already about 1200 words/hour. (This didn’t take into account the couple hours I was fighting with Dragon to get it to work and recognize my microphone, but I think that’s okay not to count it because hopefully Dragon will work all right from now on.)
Making the dictation clean will be the bigger and more important challenge. A clean dictation will make the editing easier, which will then make the editing more thorough and thoughtful than if it’s a hot mess.
I’ve recently been reading a writing motivation book written from a psychological perspective. While most of the book is pretty dry and boring, I learned that my personality is such that having numerical values to record and to aim for is what motivates me.
So these numbers for me to aim for in dictation—dictating 2000 words per hour, editing 1300 words per hour—have actually made me feel very positive about the whole dictation thing, even though it’s so difficult for me to dictate right now.
For now, I’m still doing only one dictation session/sprint per day because I want to focus on blocking the current book and the rest of this series so I won’t be so confused with the timeline when I’m writing. I think it would be a lot easier if I were blocking a different series while writing this book. When I was writing on Saturday, I wrote about a particular group, but then couldn’t remember if I’d already written about them, or if I was just remembering what I’d blocked about for a later chapter. It kind of jolted me out of my writing zone (not that I was really all that in the zone, but it did make me take a mental shift away from the story).
***
Quality of writing
I’m not terribly happy with the writing I did today. It seems kind of clunky to me, maybe because I didn’t see the sentences as I was writing them, and editing them after the fact is definitely harder than editing them as I’m writing them.
I wonder if I should instead write directly in Dragon so that I can adjust the sentences as I write them? I know that I’m very visually oriented, so dictating into a recording without seeing my sentences is a bit jarring. I could perhaps train myself to eventually dictate without looking at my sentences, but for now, at least, maybe I should dictate in Dragon so I see my sentences.
Dictating in Dragon directly is not as accurate as transcribing the recording, because when transcribing, the program does several passes over the audio before transcribing it, whereas when dictating into Dragon, it only does one pass. But I think I’d be okay with that, especially because I can also use the time to train Dragon in words it keeps getting wrong. I try to do that after transcribing the recording, but I miss words that Dragon make mistakes on and don’t realize it until I’m doing the editing in Scrivener.
Also, I’m trying to tell myself that the writing doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m in the middle of writing an epic serial novel for a commercial audience, and every sentence does not need to be Nobel Prize winning quality. I simply need to convey the characters’ feelings and keep the plot running smoothly.
Also, since it’s commercial romance fiction, it’s likely that the readers will be reading the book quickly rather than slowly taking in each sentence. A clunky section of writing is not going to ruin the entire book.
***
I’m really happy with the blocking I got done today. I ended up writing past midnight, but I’m going to back date this and post this for Monday’s post.
Writing: Time spent: 30 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1077 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 2136 words/hour
Writing streak: 23 days
Editing: Time spent: 44 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 31 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: (forgot to set Toggl timer)
My takeaway for today: Calculating a target for dictation makes it seem much more doable and helps me feel a bit more positive about it, even though it’s difficult.
My second takeaway for today: Try dictating directly in Dragon to see if that makes the writing a little easier.
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