Day 786: Dictation, day 3
I had another late start to my day today because I had a bad IBS flare-up. My IBS has been bad for several days now, and I think I know what I had eaten to cause it (something that hadn’t affected me much before, but which caused problems this time).
So, I decided to try dictating during my morning walk. I admit, yesterday's dictation was pretty awesome. It was much nicer to walk rather than sitting at my desk to write. And being outside my house forced me to only concentrate on my work, since there wasn't anything else for me to do, besides listen to music or an audiobook.
I did have to train myself to stop speaking and pause my recorder when a car was going past, since one or two of the books on dictation I have read have mentioned that car noises can drown out the dictation and make it difficult for Dragon to transcribe. However once I got onto the walking trail, I didn't have to worry about cars, although I still did stop and pause the recording when I passed other people.
The dictation is still awkward today. However, I admit that it's not quite as awkward as yesterday or the day before. I think my body is getting used to the act of dictating and hearing my voice, but I wouldn't say my brain has rewired itself yet so that I am able to dictate prose easily. I still feel like my brain is moving slowly, and I make lots of mistakes, although when that happens I just repeat the last sentence with corrections.
So far, it looks like my digital recorder is working well. It is lightweight and easy to hold for a long period of time. The transcription is not quite as accurate using this recorder as it is when I use my podcast microphone at my computer, but the transcription accuracy is still about 95 to 97%, if I were to make a guess.
I know that a lot of the errors are still mine, because I do not enunciate very well, and I also have not trained my Dragon enough, especially with Regency words and character names. I do a bit of training my Dragon software right after Dragon has transcribed my recording. Books on dictation say that you should speak the corrections, but to my surprise yesterday, when I simply typed my correction into DragonPad a few times, it figured out the correct word, and in the next transcription, it used the correct word. However, I will experiment with this to see if this is true. If it is, it makes training your Dragon much easier, because I can just type the correct word and Dragon will learn from it. Before, I didn't like training my Dragon because it was such a tedious process, and took at least 30 seconds per word, although that might also be because my computer is old, and so Dragon runs slowly.
I have to make sure I allot enough time to transcribe my recordings at the end of my working day. I didn't like how yesterday, it had gotten too late and I couldn't finish the edits on the transcription. I had considered staying up longer, but it was already an hour past my bedtime and I was exhausted, plus I had some IBS issues at the time.
I also checked my numbers from yesterday. I had dictated for a little over three hours, and it ended up being a little over 5000 words, with a words per hour rate of around 1500 words per hour. Most people dictate at a much higher rate, but I am also still editing as I go, because I repeat sentences a lot. I make a lot of mistakes when dictating—I am not able to just spit out a clean sentence.
I wonder if that just means I need to think more before I speak? Right now, my thinking speed is slow, so I think dictation will also be slow whether I stop and think before I speak, or if I simply repeat sentences to correct them.
Editing the dictation mess is as awful as I expected it to be, because I hate self editing. I do worry a little bit that my writing style has changed a little bit, or that the quality is suffering a little bit. It could be because of the dictation, or it could be because the cleanup editing job is difficult, and I'm just not doing a good job of it.
I was thinking about separating my words per hour data for dictating and editing, but decided to keep them together. I could keep track only of the words per hour rate for when I'm dictating, but those are just excessive vomit words, and I don't think that metric helps me except to give me an ego boost. I need to know exactly how many usable words I am able to dictate in the time it takes to dictate, transcribe, and edits. This will enable me to more accurately compare the dictation process to my editing as I go method. The dictation is basically vomit writing and then editing the vomit right away, rather than waiting to do it later.
I also know that because I dislike editing, doing the editing right away is the path of least resistance for me. I want to make it as easy as possible to do something that I dislike and which is difficult for me, so doing the editing of the dictation right away is the way to ensure that I will do the editing without procrastinating. Also, when I write editing as I go, I'm simply writing and editing at the same time, so my dictation and editing should also be lumped together.
I guess that's enough of a warm-up and I will start dictating my scene right now. I do feel like I'm a bit more tired this morning, so I hope the dictation goes well.
*
I don’t know that I really liked dictating my book first thing in the morning like that. I got the sense that my thinking was slow compared to later in the day. I’ll have to test this later and see if the dictating feels smoother if I do it in the afternoon instead of the morning.
However, after I returned home, I had Dragon transcribe the recordings, but I didn’t add them to my manuscript just yet, because I still need to edit what I wrote yesterday. That will be my main goal today.
However, I can already feel the desire to procrastinate since I know it’s going to be a big job. I really tried my best to reduce obstacles so that I would just do the editing and not struggle with it, but I guess it’s kind of natural that I’d have a lot of editing if I did a lot of dictation.
Other authors who dictate tend to advise that you not edit the dictation until your first editing pass through the manuscript, because you don’t want to go into editing mode to jar your mind out of creative mode. I considered that, but especially after seeing how I’m reacting now to the load of editing work to do today, I know I can’t put the self-editing off. I know myself—I have to do the editing as soon as I finish dictating every day or I will REALLY struggle with procrastination. Worst case scenario, it won't get done for weeks or months.
*
I finished editing the dictation from yesterday! Oh man what a chore.
Yesterday, the raw dictation was 5111 words and took 3.25 hours. Transcription took about 1 hour, and editing yesterday and today took almost 2.25 hours. So for me, at least, editing takes 70% of the time it takes for me to do the dictation! The transcription also took a while because of my old computer, but I also admit I left my desk to do other things since I couldn’t use my computer while Dragon was working so hard, and so the transcription might have taken less time if I’d stuck around to watch it.
After editing, it ended up being 3960 new words added to my manuscript. The total amount of time the dictation, transcription, and editing took was 6 hours, 32 minutes. So it ends up being a pace of 606 words per hour.
If I don’t include the transcription time, it was still 5 hours and 26 minutes, which ends up being 729 words per hour.
(I recorded my dictation, transcription, and editing time all as “writing” because I want to compare it to my normal typing and editing as I go method, in which I do the writing and editing at the same time. The only time I consider “editing” is when I do my cycling the next day to do another pass through what I’ve just written, and also after I finish the manuscript and do a last editing pass through it.)
My writing pace when I type and edit as I go is 820 words per hour, so at the moment, the dictation is slower.
However, I am determined to really give this a long trial before deciding if I want to continue or not. It’s only been 3 days. I’d be curious to see how much it will improve as I get more accustomed to dictation.
“Your initial reactions might not be serving you well on this one. Most people would acknowledge that the body and mind resist a lot of natural, good things. Inner resistance isn’t always an indication that you should give up.” —Excerpt from The Productive Author's Guide to Dictation: Speak Your Way to Higher (and Healthier!) Word Counts by Cindy Griggs
Speaking of this book, I finished re-reading it. Her chapter on some of the ways she has used dictation was quite enlightening. She listed some uses that I hadn’t thought of before but were really great, such as reading from a library book in order to take notes or quote text.
I don’t agree with her advice not to allow for silence. I think that silence followed by a more thoughtful dictated line is better than something dictated just to fill the silence and not stop talking.
I found her chapters on software and hardware and apps a bit overwhelming since there’s so much information. Also, I don’t know how much of that is outdated since this book released in 2015? I think? I did my own research into my digital recorder, and the podcasting mic I use is one my husband got for me because he found it for a really good deal, maybe because it’s not one of the really well-known ones.
I didn’t find the first 8 drills useful because I only use 4 or 5 dictation commands. The other drills are supposed to be done one a day for a month along with dictating your current manuscript, but they are all drills on using dictation in different ways, about half of them outside from dictating fiction. I personally think the drills would be excellent for someone just starting out in dictation to ease into it before starting to dictate your book.
However, I personally didn’t find the drills all that interesting. Other dictation books recommend practicing dictation with things like email and blog posts. This time around trying out dictation, I’m putting in more time on dictating my book, to get myself used to dictating description and emotion and dialogue. There’s also another dictation book I want to re-read which I know has other drills to try, which I had found more interesting than the ones in this book.
Her last chapter on “What To Do If The Whole Thing Is Just Too Frustrating” was good advice.
On a whole, it was a decent book, although if I could only buy one book, I’d buy Monica Leonelle’s book Dictate Your Book: How To Write Your Book Faster, Better, and Smarter instead. I found her practical advice on mindset and dictation methods just a little bit more comprehensive than this one by Griggs.
*
I did transcribe the dictation from this morning, but I did not edit it because it was already getting to be too late in the evening. I’ll clean up the dictation tomorrow. However, I included the dictation and transcription times in the numbers below under “writing."
Writing streak: 265 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 15 minutes (this includes the time spent editing yesterday’s dictation as well as dictating today and transcribing today’s dictation.)
Writing: Total number of words: 3960 words (this is only the final word count from yesterday’s dictation. I did not include the raw dictation words from today’s dictation.)
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 1 hour, 3 minutes
Email: time spent: 3 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 46 minutes
My takeaway for today: My brain felt slow when dictating during my morning walk, so compare to how I feel when I dictate during an afternoon walk instead.
My second takeaway for today: I don’t like not doing the edits on my dictation on the same day, and I find myself tempted to procrastinate on the editing. Tomorrow I have to time my dictation session so that I also have time to edit it before the end of the day.
So, I decided to try dictating during my morning walk. I admit, yesterday's dictation was pretty awesome. It was much nicer to walk rather than sitting at my desk to write. And being outside my house forced me to only concentrate on my work, since there wasn't anything else for me to do, besides listen to music or an audiobook.
I did have to train myself to stop speaking and pause my recorder when a car was going past, since one or two of the books on dictation I have read have mentioned that car noises can drown out the dictation and make it difficult for Dragon to transcribe. However once I got onto the walking trail, I didn't have to worry about cars, although I still did stop and pause the recording when I passed other people.
The dictation is still awkward today. However, I admit that it's not quite as awkward as yesterday or the day before. I think my body is getting used to the act of dictating and hearing my voice, but I wouldn't say my brain has rewired itself yet so that I am able to dictate prose easily. I still feel like my brain is moving slowly, and I make lots of mistakes, although when that happens I just repeat the last sentence with corrections.
So far, it looks like my digital recorder is working well. It is lightweight and easy to hold for a long period of time. The transcription is not quite as accurate using this recorder as it is when I use my podcast microphone at my computer, but the transcription accuracy is still about 95 to 97%, if I were to make a guess.
I know that a lot of the errors are still mine, because I do not enunciate very well, and I also have not trained my Dragon enough, especially with Regency words and character names. I do a bit of training my Dragon software right after Dragon has transcribed my recording. Books on dictation say that you should speak the corrections, but to my surprise yesterday, when I simply typed my correction into DragonPad a few times, it figured out the correct word, and in the next transcription, it used the correct word. However, I will experiment with this to see if this is true. If it is, it makes training your Dragon much easier, because I can just type the correct word and Dragon will learn from it. Before, I didn't like training my Dragon because it was such a tedious process, and took at least 30 seconds per word, although that might also be because my computer is old, and so Dragon runs slowly.
I have to make sure I allot enough time to transcribe my recordings at the end of my working day. I didn't like how yesterday, it had gotten too late and I couldn't finish the edits on the transcription. I had considered staying up longer, but it was already an hour past my bedtime and I was exhausted, plus I had some IBS issues at the time.
I also checked my numbers from yesterday. I had dictated for a little over three hours, and it ended up being a little over 5000 words, with a words per hour rate of around 1500 words per hour. Most people dictate at a much higher rate, but I am also still editing as I go, because I repeat sentences a lot. I make a lot of mistakes when dictating—I am not able to just spit out a clean sentence.
I wonder if that just means I need to think more before I speak? Right now, my thinking speed is slow, so I think dictation will also be slow whether I stop and think before I speak, or if I simply repeat sentences to correct them.
Editing the dictation mess is as awful as I expected it to be, because I hate self editing. I do worry a little bit that my writing style has changed a little bit, or that the quality is suffering a little bit. It could be because of the dictation, or it could be because the cleanup editing job is difficult, and I'm just not doing a good job of it.
I was thinking about separating my words per hour data for dictating and editing, but decided to keep them together. I could keep track only of the words per hour rate for when I'm dictating, but those are just excessive vomit words, and I don't think that metric helps me except to give me an ego boost. I need to know exactly how many usable words I am able to dictate in the time it takes to dictate, transcribe, and edits. This will enable me to more accurately compare the dictation process to my editing as I go method. The dictation is basically vomit writing and then editing the vomit right away, rather than waiting to do it later.
I also know that because I dislike editing, doing the editing right away is the path of least resistance for me. I want to make it as easy as possible to do something that I dislike and which is difficult for me, so doing the editing of the dictation right away is the way to ensure that I will do the editing without procrastinating. Also, when I write editing as I go, I'm simply writing and editing at the same time, so my dictation and editing should also be lumped together.
I guess that's enough of a warm-up and I will start dictating my scene right now. I do feel like I'm a bit more tired this morning, so I hope the dictation goes well.
*
I don’t know that I really liked dictating my book first thing in the morning like that. I got the sense that my thinking was slow compared to later in the day. I’ll have to test this later and see if the dictating feels smoother if I do it in the afternoon instead of the morning.
However, after I returned home, I had Dragon transcribe the recordings, but I didn’t add them to my manuscript just yet, because I still need to edit what I wrote yesterday. That will be my main goal today.
However, I can already feel the desire to procrastinate since I know it’s going to be a big job. I really tried my best to reduce obstacles so that I would just do the editing and not struggle with it, but I guess it’s kind of natural that I’d have a lot of editing if I did a lot of dictation.
Other authors who dictate tend to advise that you not edit the dictation until your first editing pass through the manuscript, because you don’t want to go into editing mode to jar your mind out of creative mode. I considered that, but especially after seeing how I’m reacting now to the load of editing work to do today, I know I can’t put the self-editing off. I know myself—I have to do the editing as soon as I finish dictating every day or I will REALLY struggle with procrastination. Worst case scenario, it won't get done for weeks or months.
*
I finished editing the dictation from yesterday! Oh man what a chore.
Yesterday, the raw dictation was 5111 words and took 3.25 hours. Transcription took about 1 hour, and editing yesterday and today took almost 2.25 hours. So for me, at least, editing takes 70% of the time it takes for me to do the dictation! The transcription also took a while because of my old computer, but I also admit I left my desk to do other things since I couldn’t use my computer while Dragon was working so hard, and so the transcription might have taken less time if I’d stuck around to watch it.
After editing, it ended up being 3960 new words added to my manuscript. The total amount of time the dictation, transcription, and editing took was 6 hours, 32 minutes. So it ends up being a pace of 606 words per hour.
If I don’t include the transcription time, it was still 5 hours and 26 minutes, which ends up being 729 words per hour.
(I recorded my dictation, transcription, and editing time all as “writing” because I want to compare it to my normal typing and editing as I go method, in which I do the writing and editing at the same time. The only time I consider “editing” is when I do my cycling the next day to do another pass through what I’ve just written, and also after I finish the manuscript and do a last editing pass through it.)
My writing pace when I type and edit as I go is 820 words per hour, so at the moment, the dictation is slower.
However, I am determined to really give this a long trial before deciding if I want to continue or not. It’s only been 3 days. I’d be curious to see how much it will improve as I get more accustomed to dictation.
“Your initial reactions might not be serving you well on this one. Most people would acknowledge that the body and mind resist a lot of natural, good things. Inner resistance isn’t always an indication that you should give up.” —Excerpt from The Productive Author's Guide to Dictation: Speak Your Way to Higher (and Healthier!) Word Counts by Cindy Griggs
Speaking of this book, I finished re-reading it. Her chapter on some of the ways she has used dictation was quite enlightening. She listed some uses that I hadn’t thought of before but were really great, such as reading from a library book in order to take notes or quote text.
I don’t agree with her advice not to allow for silence. I think that silence followed by a more thoughtful dictated line is better than something dictated just to fill the silence and not stop talking.
I found her chapters on software and hardware and apps a bit overwhelming since there’s so much information. Also, I don’t know how much of that is outdated since this book released in 2015? I think? I did my own research into my digital recorder, and the podcasting mic I use is one my husband got for me because he found it for a really good deal, maybe because it’s not one of the really well-known ones.
I didn’t find the first 8 drills useful because I only use 4 or 5 dictation commands. The other drills are supposed to be done one a day for a month along with dictating your current manuscript, but they are all drills on using dictation in different ways, about half of them outside from dictating fiction. I personally think the drills would be excellent for someone just starting out in dictation to ease into it before starting to dictate your book.
However, I personally didn’t find the drills all that interesting. Other dictation books recommend practicing dictation with things like email and blog posts. This time around trying out dictation, I’m putting in more time on dictating my book, to get myself used to dictating description and emotion and dialogue. There’s also another dictation book I want to re-read which I know has other drills to try, which I had found more interesting than the ones in this book.
Her last chapter on “What To Do If The Whole Thing Is Just Too Frustrating” was good advice.
On a whole, it was a decent book, although if I could only buy one book, I’d buy Monica Leonelle’s book Dictate Your Book: How To Write Your Book Faster, Better, and Smarter instead. I found her practical advice on mindset and dictation methods just a little bit more comprehensive than this one by Griggs.
*
I did transcribe the dictation from this morning, but I did not edit it because it was already getting to be too late in the evening. I’ll clean up the dictation tomorrow. However, I included the dictation and transcription times in the numbers below under “writing."
Writing streak: 265 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 15 minutes (this includes the time spent editing yesterday’s dictation as well as dictating today and transcribing today’s dictation.)
Writing: Total number of words: 3960 words (this is only the final word count from yesterday’s dictation. I did not include the raw dictation words from today’s dictation.)
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 1 hour, 3 minutes
Email: time spent: 3 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 46 minutes
My takeaway for today: My brain felt slow when dictating during my morning walk, so compare to how I feel when I dictate during an afternoon walk instead.
My second takeaway for today: I don’t like not doing the edits on my dictation on the same day, and I find myself tempted to procrastinate on the editing. Tomorrow I have to time my dictation session so that I also have time to edit it before the end of the day.
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