Day 801: Dictation, day 16 - Trying to relax
I had a little bit of IBS that caused me to have a slow start this morning, but I got all my “frogs” done. The only problem is that I had to do a marketing task that took over an hour. It absolutely had to be done, and I’m glad I finished it, but it did make me late to start my dictation today. Because of that, I decided to cut my dictation time a bit short.
The free writing exercise I did yesterday seemed to help me practice not pausing while I dictate. Freewriting is supposed to help you to release inhibitions and just write without worrying about how it sounds. I guess I need that for my dictation, because I still had a lot of words I needed to delete yesterday because I’d dictate a sentence, then repeat it with corrections.
But mostly I want to get used to just keeping on dictating without silence. Sometimes that’s hard because I have to read my blocking notes on my phone to see where I’m supposed to go. Some days will be like yesterday, where I dictated some dialogue out of order from what I’d written in my blocking notes, which required me to think a bit harder about how and where the scene flowed.
Anyway, I think I’ll continue trying the free writing dictation exercise before my writing session. I’m also combining it with the short sentences dictation exercise from Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation, which I am hoping will help me learn to think in sentences rather than word by word. I’m not positive, but I might be getting better at it???
***
During my dictation exercise, I realized that part of the reason why I have so much silence when I dictate might be because I freeze up when trying to think of something else to say.
I also realized that another reason why I have long stretches of silence is because I’m trying to decide what to write next. I know that I am very bad at making decisions, which would make my brain work slowly to decide what to write next.
So I decided to instead try relaxing more as I dictate and letting my mind wander. I can say the first thing that comes to mind, not having to worry about if it's appropriate or not. I can just delete it later. And who knows, I might come up with something really creative and cool.
Even if I repeat a lot, repetition is better than silence. If I have more words, even if I have to delete a lot of it, I’ll still be moving forward in my book.
So I tried that today. I still adhered to my blocking notes, but I only need to look briefly to make sure the scene is still going where it should, and then I just dictate.
However, my IBS started acting up in the middle of the walk, so I had to stop dictating until the bout passed. I lost maybe 20 minutes in the middle, but once I felt better, I started dictating again, but I was disappointed that I had lost my momentum in the middle, because I thought I’d been doing rather well.
I figured out a way to transcribe my dictation files when I don’t have to babysit the computer, so I did the transcription while eating dinner. Therefore, I didn’t record the transcription times, and I didn’t include it when I calculated my final words per hour rate.
I was pleased because just the dictation alone for the first half of my dictation time was almost 3500 words per hour! Because I had lost my momentum, the second half was a little slower, at 2900 words per hour, but still really great compared to the past two weeks. I guess trying to relax did help me to dictate faster.
But even though I dictated a lot, there was still a lot that I had to delete, and quite a bit I had to add because the dictation wasn’t clear.
Since I hadn’t included the transcription time, the final writing time (including dictation and cleanup time) was naturally higher than the days before, at 1400 words per hour, which is rather good compared to typing. I ended up with 1900 usable words, which is good for a day like today, where I was both busy with house chores and had IBS issues, but still managed to get some work done.
I think the act of relaxing helped a lot. It made me continue dictating, which moved me forward in my book, trying not to worry about how the sentences sounded. I’m really glad I did the dictation exercise before starting writing on my book. I think it helped me start dictating faster right off the bat.
I had forgotten to do my cycle edit before I left the house to walk and dictate, so I didn’t do the cycle edit of the scene I finished dictating yesterday. It was the last scene of book 4, which I had forgotten to mention in my blog post yesterday. So actually, the rough draft of the book was done yesterday. Yay!
But actually, I didn’t think about the fact that once I finish the cycle edit, I have to go back to the beginning of the book and do a final self-editing pass before sending it to my proofreader. I probably should have done that today rather than dictating.
So I think that tomorrow I will start on the final editing pass of volume 4, and maybe only do the bare minimum of writing on book 5 to keep my streak going.
Or I might still do a bit of dictating, so that I can practice free writing and learning to relax so that I can dictate continuously without stopping. I think that if I practice that more, it will become easier for me to do. And once I can learn to dictate continuously, then I can work on thinking more in complete sentences and dictating more smoothly without mistakes. I’ll take each problem one at a time.
Writing streak: 280 days
The free writing exercise I did yesterday seemed to help me practice not pausing while I dictate. Freewriting is supposed to help you to release inhibitions and just write without worrying about how it sounds. I guess I need that for my dictation, because I still had a lot of words I needed to delete yesterday because I’d dictate a sentence, then repeat it with corrections.
But mostly I want to get used to just keeping on dictating without silence. Sometimes that’s hard because I have to read my blocking notes on my phone to see where I’m supposed to go. Some days will be like yesterday, where I dictated some dialogue out of order from what I’d written in my blocking notes, which required me to think a bit harder about how and where the scene flowed.
Anyway, I think I’ll continue trying the free writing dictation exercise before my writing session. I’m also combining it with the short sentences dictation exercise from Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation, which I am hoping will help me learn to think in sentences rather than word by word. I’m not positive, but I might be getting better at it???
***
During my dictation exercise, I realized that part of the reason why I have so much silence when I dictate might be because I freeze up when trying to think of something else to say.
I also realized that another reason why I have long stretches of silence is because I’m trying to decide what to write next. I know that I am very bad at making decisions, which would make my brain work slowly to decide what to write next.
So I decided to instead try relaxing more as I dictate and letting my mind wander. I can say the first thing that comes to mind, not having to worry about if it's appropriate or not. I can just delete it later. And who knows, I might come up with something really creative and cool.
Even if I repeat a lot, repetition is better than silence. If I have more words, even if I have to delete a lot of it, I’ll still be moving forward in my book.
So I tried that today. I still adhered to my blocking notes, but I only need to look briefly to make sure the scene is still going where it should, and then I just dictate.
However, my IBS started acting up in the middle of the walk, so I had to stop dictating until the bout passed. I lost maybe 20 minutes in the middle, but once I felt better, I started dictating again, but I was disappointed that I had lost my momentum in the middle, because I thought I’d been doing rather well.
I figured out a way to transcribe my dictation files when I don’t have to babysit the computer, so I did the transcription while eating dinner. Therefore, I didn’t record the transcription times, and I didn’t include it when I calculated my final words per hour rate.
I was pleased because just the dictation alone for the first half of my dictation time was almost 3500 words per hour! Because I had lost my momentum, the second half was a little slower, at 2900 words per hour, but still really great compared to the past two weeks. I guess trying to relax did help me to dictate faster.
But even though I dictated a lot, there was still a lot that I had to delete, and quite a bit I had to add because the dictation wasn’t clear.
Since I hadn’t included the transcription time, the final writing time (including dictation and cleanup time) was naturally higher than the days before, at 1400 words per hour, which is rather good compared to typing. I ended up with 1900 usable words, which is good for a day like today, where I was both busy with house chores and had IBS issues, but still managed to get some work done.
I think the act of relaxing helped a lot. It made me continue dictating, which moved me forward in my book, trying not to worry about how the sentences sounded. I’m really glad I did the dictation exercise before starting writing on my book. I think it helped me start dictating faster right off the bat.
I had forgotten to do my cycle edit before I left the house to walk and dictate, so I didn’t do the cycle edit of the scene I finished dictating yesterday. It was the last scene of book 4, which I had forgotten to mention in my blog post yesterday. So actually, the rough draft of the book was done yesterday. Yay!
But actually, I didn’t think about the fact that once I finish the cycle edit, I have to go back to the beginning of the book and do a final self-editing pass before sending it to my proofreader. I probably should have done that today rather than dictating.
So I think that tomorrow I will start on the final editing pass of volume 4, and maybe only do the bare minimum of writing on book 5 to keep my streak going.
Or I might still do a bit of dictating, so that I can practice free writing and learning to relax so that I can dictate continuously without stopping. I think that if I practice that more, it will become easier for me to do. And once I can learn to dictate continuously, then I can work on thinking more in complete sentences and dictating more smoothly without mistakes. I’ll take each problem one at a time.
Writing streak: 280 days
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