Day 794: Dictation, day 11 - Frustrated at lack of progress
I admit, I have not been feeling well all day. My IBS has been bothering me on and off, and even medication doesn't seem to help much.
It's hard for me to write when I have IBS pain, so I decided to try to be productive despite how I was feeling, and I did my “frogs.” I read that Elana Johnson does about one hour of marketing a day. I don't have as much marketing as she does, but she also has assistants. I thought I would try it, since I have been feeling lately that I have too much marketing work to do and doing only 30 minutes a day still leaves me behind with a lot of things.
After doing my “frogs,” I wasn't feeling great, but I decided to try to walk and dictate anyway. I figured that even a few minutes will enable me to write a few hundred words.
I hadn't thought about this before, but I had been dictating when the weather was nice. Now that it's very hot in the afternoon, I have to be more careful about going out to walk and dictate. I could dictate at home, or in the backyard, but I have become so used to walking and dictating lately, that it seems uninteresting to dictate at my desk or out in the yard.
I am still working to improve my dictation, so I am going to try the sentence variation exercises from Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation to help my brain learn to think in phrases and sentences rather than one word at a time. I think that will help my dictation have fewer errors and go more smoothly.
I decided to skip the dictation exercise where you dictate a scene three times. The exercise would be great to use with flash fiction, but I don't have any flash fiction ideas at the moment, so I'll come back to this when I decide on what to write about.
Instead, I decided to do the short sentences dictation exercise, and dictate prose from a chapter in my Regency side novel (rather than my work in progress). However, I found out later that I had already partially written this scene several months ago (I hadn’t remembered doing it, and I hadn’t edited the writing), so my dictation was basically throw-away words. It was only about 10 minutes, so it wasn’t bad, and I needed to do the exercises anyway. Later, I will need to go through and edit what I wrote previously of the scene so that I can know where to start writing more.
(Dictation exercises took about 30 minutes, but the time is not included in my totals below.)
I had to cut my writing time short because I finished the scene and didn't have any more blocking notes for the next scene with me. I need to be better prepared, but then again, I also hadn’t thought the next scene was quite so short, or maybe that I would dictate it so quickly. I’ll be more prepared next time and take the blocking notes for several scenes with me, just in case.
I didn't feel like the dictation was any better than yesterday. I made a lot of mistakes and kept having to repeat sentences because I didn't like how they sounded when they came out. So I suppose I am still doing a lot of editing even as I dictate. Part of it is that I'm still having a problem thinking in whole sentences.
I also still had long stretches of silence, although maybe not as much as before. Often I was silent just because I was trying to think of what to say next, or how to phrase what I wanted to say next.
However, I think that the sentence exercises I did helped me a little bit. When I started getting stuck, I tried to remember to simply speak short sentences like in the exercise, and not worry about constructing longer sentences or about sentence rhythm. I think that helped me move forward on the writing. However, I didn’t always remember to do that.
My brain still really does not think in the right way to be able to dictate smoothly without errors. I am constantly adjusting what I wrote.
It's only been a week, but I had kind of been hoping I would be able to notice more of a difference in my dictation, being able to think in longer phrases and fuller sentences by now. I didn't expect to be able to dictate well in only a week, but I feel like I am still at the exact same place I was last week in terms of being able to dictate smoothly.
The only thing I could think of to do is to simply do more dictation exercises and practice more. Maybe I also need to relax a bit more, so that my brain doesn't freeze up as I'm trying to come up with things to say. I also need to remember to speak slowly and enunciate, because I noticed that I forget after a while.
Very frustrating, but I am still committed to trying to make this dictation thing work this time. I don't want to quit simply because it's hard. And, at the very least, my writing speed, even when you factor in the time for transcription and editing, is about the same as, and often a little faster than typing. So it's not as if I am losing time.
My dictation was also partially affected by my IBS pain. It is not constant, but it came and went a few times while on the walk. However, all I did was pause the recording, take a few deep breaths and wait for it to pass, then continue dictating. I realized that when I work at home, I would often get distracted when I would stop work in order to deal with an IBS flareup. I would get up from my computer, go get a drink, and then be distracted by dishes or laundry. I cannot be distracted by those things when I'm out on a walk, so I get back to writing work right away.
Today, I managed to get back home early enough that I could do the transcription and cleanup before I had to cook dinner. However, I made a mistake on the transcription and ended up needing to redo it all over again. I had forgotten to start the timer when I was transcribing the first time (when I made a mistake) so the time recorded below is only for the second time I transcribed the recordings. However, the mistake meant I didn’t do the cleanup until after dinner, which is why this blog post is so late. I had dictated much of this blog post while out on my walk.
I dictated for 1 hour, 25 minutes and wrote a total of 3218 words. Transcription took 32 minutes and cleanup editing took 1 hour, 8 minutes, resulting in 2963 usable words. My raw dictation speed was 2271 words per hour, while my final writing speed (including dictation, transcription, and cleanup time) was 961 words per hour. Those speeds are better than yesterday. I also noted that I was dictating faster during the latter half of that 1 hour, 25 minutes.
I’d still like to be able to dictate faster, but I think the key to that will be learning how to dictate more smoothly.
I really shouldn’t be complaining about my writing speed. I’m still dictating TONS more words than I usually write while typing, even if a lot of the raw dictation needs a ton of cleanup editing. I guess I’m just impatient.
I also realize that I need to be much better about my time management. Some things I really can’t control—like when my IBS flares up and how it’ll affect me. It’s really hard to work when that happens, and it’s also hard to predict when I’ll feel well enough to get work done. Often, like today, it’ll come back at random intervals during periods when I’m feeling relatively well.
But I also need to be better about my time so that I have more time for writing. I think I take too long to blog, so I think I’ll minimize my blogging for a few days while I’m trying to figure out this new daily work schedule.
The time I spend blogging is important, because it’s a record of my struggles with dictation. It helps me to organize my thoughts and figure out action items that I can do to try to improve my dictation.
But I think I’ll still try to minimize the time I spend blogging to see if it’ll free up all that much more time for writing. It might not make a difference in terms of my writing time each day, but I won’t know unless I try it.
Writing streak: 273 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 34 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 6 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2963 words
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 36 minutes
Email: time spent: 22 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 1 hour, 10 minutes
My takeaway for today: Be more prepared next time and take the blocking notes for several scenes with me, just in case.
My second takeaway for today: Do more dictation exercises and practice more. Maybe also relax a bit more, so that my brain doesn't freeze up as I'm trying to come up with things to say. I also need to remember to speak slowly and enunciate, because I noticed that I forget after a while.
My third takeaway for today: Minimize blogging so that you can adjust daily work schedule and hopefully write more hours during the day.
It's hard for me to write when I have IBS pain, so I decided to try to be productive despite how I was feeling, and I did my “frogs.” I read that Elana Johnson does about one hour of marketing a day. I don't have as much marketing as she does, but she also has assistants. I thought I would try it, since I have been feeling lately that I have too much marketing work to do and doing only 30 minutes a day still leaves me behind with a lot of things.
After doing my “frogs,” I wasn't feeling great, but I decided to try to walk and dictate anyway. I figured that even a few minutes will enable me to write a few hundred words.
I hadn't thought about this before, but I had been dictating when the weather was nice. Now that it's very hot in the afternoon, I have to be more careful about going out to walk and dictate. I could dictate at home, or in the backyard, but I have become so used to walking and dictating lately, that it seems uninteresting to dictate at my desk or out in the yard.
I am still working to improve my dictation, so I am going to try the sentence variation exercises from Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation to help my brain learn to think in phrases and sentences rather than one word at a time. I think that will help my dictation have fewer errors and go more smoothly.
I decided to skip the dictation exercise where you dictate a scene three times. The exercise would be great to use with flash fiction, but I don't have any flash fiction ideas at the moment, so I'll come back to this when I decide on what to write about.
Instead, I decided to do the short sentences dictation exercise, and dictate prose from a chapter in my Regency side novel (rather than my work in progress). However, I found out later that I had already partially written this scene several months ago (I hadn’t remembered doing it, and I hadn’t edited the writing), so my dictation was basically throw-away words. It was only about 10 minutes, so it wasn’t bad, and I needed to do the exercises anyway. Later, I will need to go through and edit what I wrote previously of the scene so that I can know where to start writing more.
(Dictation exercises took about 30 minutes, but the time is not included in my totals below.)
I had to cut my writing time short because I finished the scene and didn't have any more blocking notes for the next scene with me. I need to be better prepared, but then again, I also hadn’t thought the next scene was quite so short, or maybe that I would dictate it so quickly. I’ll be more prepared next time and take the blocking notes for several scenes with me, just in case.
I didn't feel like the dictation was any better than yesterday. I made a lot of mistakes and kept having to repeat sentences because I didn't like how they sounded when they came out. So I suppose I am still doing a lot of editing even as I dictate. Part of it is that I'm still having a problem thinking in whole sentences.
I also still had long stretches of silence, although maybe not as much as before. Often I was silent just because I was trying to think of what to say next, or how to phrase what I wanted to say next.
However, I think that the sentence exercises I did helped me a little bit. When I started getting stuck, I tried to remember to simply speak short sentences like in the exercise, and not worry about constructing longer sentences or about sentence rhythm. I think that helped me move forward on the writing. However, I didn’t always remember to do that.
My brain still really does not think in the right way to be able to dictate smoothly without errors. I am constantly adjusting what I wrote.
It's only been a week, but I had kind of been hoping I would be able to notice more of a difference in my dictation, being able to think in longer phrases and fuller sentences by now. I didn't expect to be able to dictate well in only a week, but I feel like I am still at the exact same place I was last week in terms of being able to dictate smoothly.
The only thing I could think of to do is to simply do more dictation exercises and practice more. Maybe I also need to relax a bit more, so that my brain doesn't freeze up as I'm trying to come up with things to say. I also need to remember to speak slowly and enunciate, because I noticed that I forget after a while.
Very frustrating, but I am still committed to trying to make this dictation thing work this time. I don't want to quit simply because it's hard. And, at the very least, my writing speed, even when you factor in the time for transcription and editing, is about the same as, and often a little faster than typing. So it's not as if I am losing time.
My dictation was also partially affected by my IBS pain. It is not constant, but it came and went a few times while on the walk. However, all I did was pause the recording, take a few deep breaths and wait for it to pass, then continue dictating. I realized that when I work at home, I would often get distracted when I would stop work in order to deal with an IBS flareup. I would get up from my computer, go get a drink, and then be distracted by dishes or laundry. I cannot be distracted by those things when I'm out on a walk, so I get back to writing work right away.
Today, I managed to get back home early enough that I could do the transcription and cleanup before I had to cook dinner. However, I made a mistake on the transcription and ended up needing to redo it all over again. I had forgotten to start the timer when I was transcribing the first time (when I made a mistake) so the time recorded below is only for the second time I transcribed the recordings. However, the mistake meant I didn’t do the cleanup until after dinner, which is why this blog post is so late. I had dictated much of this blog post while out on my walk.
I dictated for 1 hour, 25 minutes and wrote a total of 3218 words. Transcription took 32 minutes and cleanup editing took 1 hour, 8 minutes, resulting in 2963 usable words. My raw dictation speed was 2271 words per hour, while my final writing speed (including dictation, transcription, and cleanup time) was 961 words per hour. Those speeds are better than yesterday. I also noted that I was dictating faster during the latter half of that 1 hour, 25 minutes.
I’d still like to be able to dictate faster, but I think the key to that will be learning how to dictate more smoothly.
I really shouldn’t be complaining about my writing speed. I’m still dictating TONS more words than I usually write while typing, even if a lot of the raw dictation needs a ton of cleanup editing. I guess I’m just impatient.
I also realize that I need to be much better about my time management. Some things I really can’t control—like when my IBS flares up and how it’ll affect me. It’s really hard to work when that happens, and it’s also hard to predict when I’ll feel well enough to get work done. Often, like today, it’ll come back at random intervals during periods when I’m feeling relatively well.
But I also need to be better about my time so that I have more time for writing. I think I take too long to blog, so I think I’ll minimize my blogging for a few days while I’m trying to figure out this new daily work schedule.
The time I spend blogging is important, because it’s a record of my struggles with dictation. It helps me to organize my thoughts and figure out action items that I can do to try to improve my dictation.
But I think I’ll still try to minimize the time I spend blogging to see if it’ll free up all that much more time for writing. It might not make a difference in terms of my writing time each day, but I won’t know unless I try it.
Writing streak: 273 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 34 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 6 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2963 words
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 36 minutes
Email: time spent: 22 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 1 hour, 10 minutes
My takeaway for today: Be more prepared next time and take the blocking notes for several scenes with me, just in case.
My second takeaway for today: Do more dictation exercises and practice more. Maybe also relax a bit more, so that my brain doesn't freeze up as I'm trying to come up with things to say. I also need to remember to speak slowly and enunciate, because I noticed that I forget after a while.
My third takeaway for today: Minimize blogging so that you can adjust daily work schedule and hopefully write more hours during the day.
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