Day 875: Dictation, day 46
Exercise before writing
I FINALLY felt well enough today to not only exercise but also do some dictation writing on my book! I can’t believe how good that feels!
I considered doing the writing before exercise, but in the end I chose exercise first since my brain is usually firing at half-speed right after I wake up. The exercise helped me feel a bit more alert when I got back.
Microphone setup
I also have to admit that I did procrastinate a little bit before I started work. Part of the reason was my dissatisfaction with the setup of my microphone at my desk, but after I fiddled around with that, I think I’ve got a good setup down.
Plan to slowly increase writing stamina
I did 1 hour, 43 minutes of dictation, which I think was really good considering I haven’t done much dictation in the past several weeks. Eventually I’d like to do as much as 3 hours of dictation, but I’m also trying to slowly build up my writing stamina since it’s been so long since I’ve had a day where I wrote for longer than an hour.
I did a total of 4800 words in that time, for an average dictation speed of about 2700 words per hour. This is much better than I expected after not doing any dictation recently. If I can keep feeling better and start dictating more, hopefully my speed will increase.
Blocking notes, writing speed
I think it also made a huge difference that I had spent time cleaning up my blocking and making sure it was in order, since it had been a bit disorganized before. So I suppose the increased dictation speed could be attributed to the cleaned blocking notes, but I also have to weigh that against the time it took to clean up my blocking notes.
If I were typing, I wouldn’t have needed to clean up the blocking notes because I could have reorganized them as I wrote. But in that case, the notes would have been reorganized anyway before I finished writing the scene. The only difference is in whether I was writing via typing or dictation, so theoretically, writing via dictation should be faster than it would have been if I’d typed it out.
Also, I wonder if separating the blocking and writing tasks might have helped me to be more efficient, since blocking involves more problem solving while writing is creative flow. I separate the two when I reorganize the blocking notes via typing first, then dictate the prose. Whereas if I were typing, I would be trying to reorganize the blocking notes at the same time as I was trying to write the scene, and that might have ended up being difficult and inefficient since I would be trying to do two things at once that used different parts of my brain.
I suppose that if I want to write faster, I not only have to learn to dictate faster, but I should probably also try to learn to outline and block scenes faster and better, so that I don’t need to spend so much time reorganizing my notes.
Dictate an entire scene
Also, I noticed that I ended up pushing myself just a little bit more in order to finish dictating the scene. I think that’s a good motivation for me. If I try to make a goal of dictating the entire scene, that might push me to dictate for longer than I might have otherwise.
It will also make it easier to start dictation if I’m starting from the beginning of a scene rather than the middle of one. I noticed that today, it was a little hard to figure out where I’d been going in the scene when I left off last time, and I had to take the time to read what I wrote before and try to find out where in my blocking notes I had been.
Tomorrow
Anyway, I didn’t do the cleanup editing on my dictation today since it was getting late. I also had some IBS issues later in the afternoon, although it didn’t take up as much time as the previous weeks. However, it left me feeling tired right after I transcribed my dictation.
I’ll do the cleanup editing for the dictation tomorrow, and I’ll also need to look over the blocking notes for the next scene or two, to make sure they’re in order so that the dictation will go smoothly.
I might not get to more dictation tomorrow, depending on my health and energy levels, especially if I want to dictate an entire scene. If I decide not to dictate tomorrow, I’ll instead work on reorganizing my blocking notes for more scenes.
Writing streak: 354 days
My takeaway for today: While I wanted to do writing first thing, exercise first might be good to help my brain wake up and get moving before starting on my writing.
My second takeaway for today: Hopefully the new microphone setup at my desk will enable me to get started on dictation faster and with less procrastination tomorrow.
My third takeaway for today: I should try to make a goal of dictating an entire scene a day because it might be easier for me to push myself to dictate for longer in order to finish the scene.
My fourth takeaway for today: I noticed that it’s easier for me to start dictating from the beginning of a scene rather than right in the middle, where I have to figure out where I was in my blocking notes, so that’s another reason to finish a scene every day.
I FINALLY felt well enough today to not only exercise but also do some dictation writing on my book! I can’t believe how good that feels!
I considered doing the writing before exercise, but in the end I chose exercise first since my brain is usually firing at half-speed right after I wake up. The exercise helped me feel a bit more alert when I got back.
Microphone setup
I also have to admit that I did procrastinate a little bit before I started work. Part of the reason was my dissatisfaction with the setup of my microphone at my desk, but after I fiddled around with that, I think I’ve got a good setup down.
Plan to slowly increase writing stamina
I did 1 hour, 43 minutes of dictation, which I think was really good considering I haven’t done much dictation in the past several weeks. Eventually I’d like to do as much as 3 hours of dictation, but I’m also trying to slowly build up my writing stamina since it’s been so long since I’ve had a day where I wrote for longer than an hour.
I did a total of 4800 words in that time, for an average dictation speed of about 2700 words per hour. This is much better than I expected after not doing any dictation recently. If I can keep feeling better and start dictating more, hopefully my speed will increase.
Blocking notes, writing speed
I think it also made a huge difference that I had spent time cleaning up my blocking and making sure it was in order, since it had been a bit disorganized before. So I suppose the increased dictation speed could be attributed to the cleaned blocking notes, but I also have to weigh that against the time it took to clean up my blocking notes.
If I were typing, I wouldn’t have needed to clean up the blocking notes because I could have reorganized them as I wrote. But in that case, the notes would have been reorganized anyway before I finished writing the scene. The only difference is in whether I was writing via typing or dictation, so theoretically, writing via dictation should be faster than it would have been if I’d typed it out.
Also, I wonder if separating the blocking and writing tasks might have helped me to be more efficient, since blocking involves more problem solving while writing is creative flow. I separate the two when I reorganize the blocking notes via typing first, then dictate the prose. Whereas if I were typing, I would be trying to reorganize the blocking notes at the same time as I was trying to write the scene, and that might have ended up being difficult and inefficient since I would be trying to do two things at once that used different parts of my brain.
I suppose that if I want to write faster, I not only have to learn to dictate faster, but I should probably also try to learn to outline and block scenes faster and better, so that I don’t need to spend so much time reorganizing my notes.
Dictate an entire scene
Also, I noticed that I ended up pushing myself just a little bit more in order to finish dictating the scene. I think that’s a good motivation for me. If I try to make a goal of dictating the entire scene, that might push me to dictate for longer than I might have otherwise.
It will also make it easier to start dictation if I’m starting from the beginning of a scene rather than the middle of one. I noticed that today, it was a little hard to figure out where I’d been going in the scene when I left off last time, and I had to take the time to read what I wrote before and try to find out where in my blocking notes I had been.
Tomorrow
Anyway, I didn’t do the cleanup editing on my dictation today since it was getting late. I also had some IBS issues later in the afternoon, although it didn’t take up as much time as the previous weeks. However, it left me feeling tired right after I transcribed my dictation.
I’ll do the cleanup editing for the dictation tomorrow, and I’ll also need to look over the blocking notes for the next scene or two, to make sure they’re in order so that the dictation will go smoothly.
I might not get to more dictation tomorrow, depending on my health and energy levels, especially if I want to dictate an entire scene. If I decide not to dictate tomorrow, I’ll instead work on reorganizing my blocking notes for more scenes.
Writing streak: 354 days
My takeaway for today: While I wanted to do writing first thing, exercise first might be good to help my brain wake up and get moving before starting on my writing.
My second takeaway for today: Hopefully the new microphone setup at my desk will enable me to get started on dictation faster and with less procrastination tomorrow.
My third takeaway for today: I should try to make a goal of dictating an entire scene a day because it might be easier for me to push myself to dictate for longer in order to finish the scene.
My fourth takeaway for today: I noticed that it’s easier for me to start dictating from the beginning of a scene rather than right in the middle, where I have to figure out where I was in my blocking notes, so that’s another reason to finish a scene every day.
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