Day 798: Dictation, day 14
I did not do any dictation yesterday since it was a Sunday, which is usually when I don’t do any writing except 100 words to keep up my writing streak.
(A part of me thinks I just shouldn’t write at all on Sunday, but another part of me doesn’t want to break the streak. I probably could just say that Sundays aren’t included in my writing streak, but that would seem a bit like cheating to me. So I just write 100 words on Sundays as the bare minimum to keep the streak alive.)
I was listening to a podcast and the host was talking about his own writing. He also hates editing! Gosh, I seriously thought I was the only one. Anyway, he also mentions how he does cycling, although he calls it “circling,” and apparently Dean Wesley Smith wrote about it in his book on writing.
In addition, the host talked about giving yourself some time before doing the edits, because it helps make the editing better. I totally agree that it does, but since I hate editing, I have to do it right away or else, if I leave it for a period of time, I would simply procrastinate doing it, in which case it wouldn’t get done for a long time.
However, lately I haven’t been able to do my cycling the very next day after I do my dictation, since my transcription and cleanup have been taking so long. I have been noticing that when I don’t do my cycling the very next day, but maybe the day after that, the writing does feel fresher and I feel like I have been able to step back enough to do a better job in the editing.
It occurred to me that instead of doing my cycling every day after my writing, I could instead do my cycling only after the chapter is done, and before I start dictation on the next chapter. Since I have been dictating more words lately and finishing chapters more quickly, the cycling might still end up being the next day after the dictation. But for other chapters, it could give me a few days between starting the chapter and doing the cycle editing, and that might help the editing turn out better.
***
I was feeling really sick this afternoon, and I ended up reading for several hours, trying to weather through the discomfort.
However, I felt better around dinnertime, so I went walking after dinner and ended up dictating in my book. I was also trying harder not to pause so much, so that there was less silence and so I would dictate more words.
To my surprise, I dictated 3000 words in 45 minutes, which is about 4000 words per hour! That’s the fastest I’ve ever dictated! However, I cut about 1000 of those words, and the editing ended up being very messy today because I also decided the change the point of view of the scene. So I ended up not using the dictation I did last week Saturday, and I only used bits and pieces of it.
I ended up with only about 2000 usable words. My final words per hour was 1000 words per hour, which still isn’t bad. I would really like to get my final word per hour rate up to 2000.
Writing streak: 277 days
(A part of me thinks I just shouldn’t write at all on Sunday, but another part of me doesn’t want to break the streak. I probably could just say that Sundays aren’t included in my writing streak, but that would seem a bit like cheating to me. So I just write 100 words on Sundays as the bare minimum to keep the streak alive.)
I was listening to a podcast and the host was talking about his own writing. He also hates editing! Gosh, I seriously thought I was the only one. Anyway, he also mentions how he does cycling, although he calls it “circling,” and apparently Dean Wesley Smith wrote about it in his book on writing.
In addition, the host talked about giving yourself some time before doing the edits, because it helps make the editing better. I totally agree that it does, but since I hate editing, I have to do it right away or else, if I leave it for a period of time, I would simply procrastinate doing it, in which case it wouldn’t get done for a long time.
However, lately I haven’t been able to do my cycling the very next day after I do my dictation, since my transcription and cleanup have been taking so long. I have been noticing that when I don’t do my cycling the very next day, but maybe the day after that, the writing does feel fresher and I feel like I have been able to step back enough to do a better job in the editing.
It occurred to me that instead of doing my cycling every day after my writing, I could instead do my cycling only after the chapter is done, and before I start dictation on the next chapter. Since I have been dictating more words lately and finishing chapters more quickly, the cycling might still end up being the next day after the dictation. But for other chapters, it could give me a few days between starting the chapter and doing the cycle editing, and that might help the editing turn out better.
***
I was feeling really sick this afternoon, and I ended up reading for several hours, trying to weather through the discomfort.
However, I felt better around dinnertime, so I went walking after dinner and ended up dictating in my book. I was also trying harder not to pause so much, so that there was less silence and so I would dictate more words.
To my surprise, I dictated 3000 words in 45 minutes, which is about 4000 words per hour! That’s the fastest I’ve ever dictated! However, I cut about 1000 of those words, and the editing ended up being very messy today because I also decided the change the point of view of the scene. So I ended up not using the dictation I did last week Saturday, and I only used bits and pieces of it.
I ended up with only about 2000 usable words. My final words per hour was 1000 words per hour, which still isn’t bad. I would really like to get my final word per hour rate up to 2000.
Writing streak: 277 days
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