Day 812: Dictation, day 23
I have been listening to some podcasts about writing productivity. I am still going to try to get better at dictating until I can reach 5000 words per hour (raw dictation), but in the meantime, I am going to aim for about 2 hours of dictation and 2 hours of cleanup editing per day. At my current raw dictation speed, I think that I could write a total of 5000 words per day. If I can do that, I think I could finish book 5 in a few weeks. That would be amazing if I could do that!
I had terrible IBS this morning, but I'm glad that I managed to get to work eventually. I tried to get all my frogs done this morning as quickly as possible, so that I could go walking and dictating.
I admit I'm a little worried, because although I took medicine before leaving the house, if the IBS flares up during the walk, I'll have no choice but to return home early.
I’m dictating today, first of all, a freewrite exercise, and then a fiction dictation exercise using my Regency side novel. I wasn’t supposed to do any work yesterday, but I was so excited that I was going to be writing again that I did some editing on my Regency side novel so that I would be able to use it for my fiction dictation exercises today. It was a lot more work than I had expected, since it was in much worse shape than I had expected. But I think I will be able to use it as a prompt for my dictation exercises.
I have to remember today to just let my mind relax as I dictate. I want to try to not pause very much, and just speak the first thing that comes to mind. I think this will enable me to write more words per hour. I will try to not worry about making mistakes or repeating myself, even though this will eventually lead to me needing a to delete words during the cleanup edit. But if I let my mind go, I will at least be able to keep dictating and keep moving forward in the scene. Even repeating myself will eventually lead to moving the scene along.
I think my biggest problem is that it's hard for me to relax my brain. Dictation is still very awkward for me, and feels weird. It's hard to just speak whatever I feel like. It's also hard for me to not care about mistakes and repetition. This might be a holdover because I tend to like writing and editing as I go, so I like to type and then correct so that it says exactly what I wanted to say. I don't know if it's possible, but I want to eventually reach a point where I can think of a sentence and it will be exactly what I wanted it to say, and it will not need editing after I speak or type it. I am hoping that the sentence variation dictation exercises will help my brain to think more in phrases and sentences than word by word.
For now, I'm going to concentrate on speaking continuously and not pausing. Even if I have to repeat myself, I want to get into the habit of just continuing to dictate. I hope that the prose will still be good.
When I was editing book 4, I tried to look to see if my writing changed very much from when I was typing to when I switched to dictating. I honestly could not tell much of a difference. That pleased me very much, because I was worried that my writing style might have altered when I switched to dictation. But if I think about it, the only thing that really has changed (at least at this point) is my output method. My brain is still the same one that would send the prose to my fingers, except that this time it's sending the prose to my mouth. So the writing shouldn't be different.
I'm also happy that walking and dictating enables me to get out of the house more. I enjoy these long walks because I can enjoy the trail near my house, which has lots of birds and ground squirrels and sometimes rabbits and deer. And once I even saw some wild boars. It's a nice trail, even though at this time of year it's a bit hot. It also doesn't have a lot of people, and there are no cars, naturally, so there is very little to distract me. The only problem is if my IBS acts up, I have to make my way back home, and there are very few shortcut trails back.
My fiction dictation exercise today will be just short sentences. I tended to favor this dictation exercise the most. It feels a little more natural to me. Although maybe that means I should try some of the other sentence variation dictation exercises, in order to make things a little more difficult for me. However, I'm still at a point where dictation is hard and awkward and terrible. So if the dictation exercise is too difficult, I think I would be tempted to skip it.
I'm really glad that I read the book, Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation. The dictation exercises have been helpful for the areas of dictation where I really needed help. Other people would probably have different areas of dictation where they need practice and tips, in which case maybe other dictation books with other exercises might appeal to them. But this particular book has been very helpful to me. At the very least, it has made me much more comfortable with the physical sensation of dictating. Forcing my brain to think in sentences has been harder, but doing the exercises has enabled me to get into the right mind space to be able to dictate fiction, especially if I make sure I do at least one fiction dictation exercise before I start work on my novel.
***
I found myself getting tense while I was dictating, which was weird. I had to remind myself to relax and just dictate the first thing I thought of. Which, if I’m being perfectly honest, is just like vomit writing. But somehow it’s easier to vomit write when I’m dictating, maybe because I can speak much faster than I can type. I will say a sentence several times before I figure out exactly what I want to say, and that is much faster than staring at the computer screen and editing the sentence on the screen.
Anyway, the dictation didn’t feel all that different from other times. I thought I might have paused a bit less, but my raw dictation speed was still less than 3000 words per hour, so I probably paused more than I thought, and I just didn’t notice it. But my total raw dictation word count was 4500 words, so that’s close to my 5000 word goal. It’ll probably be less after I do cleanup editing, which I decided to do tomorrow.
I might have dictated more, but I really wasn’t feeling very well. My IBS acted up a bit at times during the walk, forcing me to stop dictating and rest a bit. I also had back and neck soreness, I think because my posture while I’m dictating and walking is very poor. I think that I look down at my phone too much while I’m dictating, since I’m looking at my blocking notes, and combined with the water in my backpack, it makes my shoulders ache. For the last 10 minutes, I had to stop dictating because my shoulders were sore and distracting me. I have to be more aware of my posture while I’m out walking.
In addition, it was really hot today and I got a bit of heat stroke when I went out walking, even though I had brought a big bottle of ice water with me. I ended up with a bit of a headache, so I decided to do the cleanup editing tomorrow instead of today.
I think either tomorrow or the day after, I’ll try dictating in the morning. I tried it once and didn’t like it, but I’ll try it again, now that I’m getting more used to dictation, and see if I’m able to dictate as well. I might even be able to dictate better in the morning, who knows?
I also realized something when I got home today. I think that dictating started feeling less unnatural to me because hearing myself speak the prose isn’t that different from when I read, because I read slowly and often speak the words in my head as I’m reading. I have friends who are amazing speed-readers, and I have read that they are like that because they don’t speak the words in their head as they read, or “vocalization” is what it’s called.
In contrast, I vocalize while reading all the time. So vocalizing my prose with dictation is actually a lot like when I read. Once I got used to the physical sensation of dictating (which was hard because I don’t normally speak out loud to myself), I think it was easier to get used to the sound of my voice because it’s a lot like vocalizing while reading.
I wonder if dictation would be more difficult for someone who doesn’t vocalize when they read? They’re not used to hearing the sentences in their head, so maybe they’d have a harder time speaking the sentences out loud. I suppose it would also matter how they wrote, if they vocalize the sentences as they write or not.
Writing streak: 291 days
My takeaway for today: Be more aware of your posture while walking so that your back doesn’t get sore.
My second takeaway for today: Try dictating in the morning to compare how you do.
I had terrible IBS this morning, but I'm glad that I managed to get to work eventually. I tried to get all my frogs done this morning as quickly as possible, so that I could go walking and dictating.
I admit I'm a little worried, because although I took medicine before leaving the house, if the IBS flares up during the walk, I'll have no choice but to return home early.
I’m dictating today, first of all, a freewrite exercise, and then a fiction dictation exercise using my Regency side novel. I wasn’t supposed to do any work yesterday, but I was so excited that I was going to be writing again that I did some editing on my Regency side novel so that I would be able to use it for my fiction dictation exercises today. It was a lot more work than I had expected, since it was in much worse shape than I had expected. But I think I will be able to use it as a prompt for my dictation exercises.
I have to remember today to just let my mind relax as I dictate. I want to try to not pause very much, and just speak the first thing that comes to mind. I think this will enable me to write more words per hour. I will try to not worry about making mistakes or repeating myself, even though this will eventually lead to me needing a to delete words during the cleanup edit. But if I let my mind go, I will at least be able to keep dictating and keep moving forward in the scene. Even repeating myself will eventually lead to moving the scene along.
I think my biggest problem is that it's hard for me to relax my brain. Dictation is still very awkward for me, and feels weird. It's hard to just speak whatever I feel like. It's also hard for me to not care about mistakes and repetition. This might be a holdover because I tend to like writing and editing as I go, so I like to type and then correct so that it says exactly what I wanted to say. I don't know if it's possible, but I want to eventually reach a point where I can think of a sentence and it will be exactly what I wanted it to say, and it will not need editing after I speak or type it. I am hoping that the sentence variation dictation exercises will help my brain to think more in phrases and sentences than word by word.
For now, I'm going to concentrate on speaking continuously and not pausing. Even if I have to repeat myself, I want to get into the habit of just continuing to dictate. I hope that the prose will still be good.
When I was editing book 4, I tried to look to see if my writing changed very much from when I was typing to when I switched to dictating. I honestly could not tell much of a difference. That pleased me very much, because I was worried that my writing style might have altered when I switched to dictation. But if I think about it, the only thing that really has changed (at least at this point) is my output method. My brain is still the same one that would send the prose to my fingers, except that this time it's sending the prose to my mouth. So the writing shouldn't be different.
I'm also happy that walking and dictating enables me to get out of the house more. I enjoy these long walks because I can enjoy the trail near my house, which has lots of birds and ground squirrels and sometimes rabbits and deer. And once I even saw some wild boars. It's a nice trail, even though at this time of year it's a bit hot. It also doesn't have a lot of people, and there are no cars, naturally, so there is very little to distract me. The only problem is if my IBS acts up, I have to make my way back home, and there are very few shortcut trails back.
My fiction dictation exercise today will be just short sentences. I tended to favor this dictation exercise the most. It feels a little more natural to me. Although maybe that means I should try some of the other sentence variation dictation exercises, in order to make things a little more difficult for me. However, I'm still at a point where dictation is hard and awkward and terrible. So if the dictation exercise is too difficult, I think I would be tempted to skip it.
I'm really glad that I read the book, Fool Proof Dictation: A No-Nonsense System for Effective & Rewarding Dictation. The dictation exercises have been helpful for the areas of dictation where I really needed help. Other people would probably have different areas of dictation where they need practice and tips, in which case maybe other dictation books with other exercises might appeal to them. But this particular book has been very helpful to me. At the very least, it has made me much more comfortable with the physical sensation of dictating. Forcing my brain to think in sentences has been harder, but doing the exercises has enabled me to get into the right mind space to be able to dictate fiction, especially if I make sure I do at least one fiction dictation exercise before I start work on my novel.
***
I found myself getting tense while I was dictating, which was weird. I had to remind myself to relax and just dictate the first thing I thought of. Which, if I’m being perfectly honest, is just like vomit writing. But somehow it’s easier to vomit write when I’m dictating, maybe because I can speak much faster than I can type. I will say a sentence several times before I figure out exactly what I want to say, and that is much faster than staring at the computer screen and editing the sentence on the screen.
Anyway, the dictation didn’t feel all that different from other times. I thought I might have paused a bit less, but my raw dictation speed was still less than 3000 words per hour, so I probably paused more than I thought, and I just didn’t notice it. But my total raw dictation word count was 4500 words, so that’s close to my 5000 word goal. It’ll probably be less after I do cleanup editing, which I decided to do tomorrow.
I might have dictated more, but I really wasn’t feeling very well. My IBS acted up a bit at times during the walk, forcing me to stop dictating and rest a bit. I also had back and neck soreness, I think because my posture while I’m dictating and walking is very poor. I think that I look down at my phone too much while I’m dictating, since I’m looking at my blocking notes, and combined with the water in my backpack, it makes my shoulders ache. For the last 10 minutes, I had to stop dictating because my shoulders were sore and distracting me. I have to be more aware of my posture while I’m out walking.
In addition, it was really hot today and I got a bit of heat stroke when I went out walking, even though I had brought a big bottle of ice water with me. I ended up with a bit of a headache, so I decided to do the cleanup editing tomorrow instead of today.
I think either tomorrow or the day after, I’ll try dictating in the morning. I tried it once and didn’t like it, but I’ll try it again, now that I’m getting more used to dictation, and see if I’m able to dictate as well. I might even be able to dictate better in the morning, who knows?
I also realized something when I got home today. I think that dictating started feeling less unnatural to me because hearing myself speak the prose isn’t that different from when I read, because I read slowly and often speak the words in my head as I’m reading. I have friends who are amazing speed-readers, and I have read that they are like that because they don’t speak the words in their head as they read, or “vocalization” is what it’s called.
In contrast, I vocalize while reading all the time. So vocalizing my prose with dictation is actually a lot like when I read. Once I got used to the physical sensation of dictating (which was hard because I don’t normally speak out loud to myself), I think it was easier to get used to the sound of my voice because it’s a lot like vocalizing while reading.
I wonder if dictation would be more difficult for someone who doesn’t vocalize when they read? They’re not used to hearing the sentences in their head, so maybe they’d have a harder time speaking the sentences out loud. I suppose it would also matter how they wrote, if they vocalize the sentences as they write or not.
Writing streak: 291 days
My takeaway for today: Be more aware of your posture while walking so that your back doesn’t get sore.
My second takeaway for today: Try dictating in the morning to compare how you do.
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