Day 879: Dictation, day 47

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I got started REALLY late today. It was totally my fault, I overslept through my alarm. On the bright side, I woke up feeling really refreshed and awake. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be hard for me to get to sleep tonight, which will make me get less sleep and feel tired tomorrow morning.

I didn’t blog yesterday simply because I was a bit lazy, plus I ended work kind of late. I not only finished blocking the next scene, but I also blocked an additional scene which I had realized I needed a few days ago. Unfortunately I ended work around 11 at night and felt too tired to blog about it.

I also feel guilty that I haven’t done any dictation for several days. A part of me wonders if it’s even worthwhile for me to dictate, since it has been taking me extra days just to do the cleanup editing. It’s nice that I can write 3000-5000 words in one day, but if I have to take an extra day or two to do the cleanup editing and rearrange my blocking notes, what’s the point?

Then again, I am reducing the stress on my hands from typing, and it definitely is faster for me to speak my prose rather than type, even though it ends up needing a lot of editing later. Also, the dictation kind of forces me to vomit-write and just go with whatever I think of first, and that is supposed to get me into creative flow. Not that I think I’ve actually felt I was in flow, but whatever.

I was tempted to just write via typing today, but I also realize I haven’t really given the dictation enough of a chance. It helps that this time, I’ve been tracking how many days I’ve been dictating, so I know I’ve only been dictating for 47 days total. I also know I haven’t dictated consistently, and I can tell that I don’t dictate as smoothly if I haven’t done it several days in a row.

Since I know a big problem is that I take a long time to do the cleanup editing, and that I will procrastinate doing it if I leave it for the next day, I’m only doing to do 30 minutes of dictation today and then do the cleanup editing in the same day. I know I can do 30 minutes easily without procrastinating the cleanup editing. Hopefully I can build up my dictation stamina and reduce my resistance to doing the editing.

If things go well, maybe I can dictate a little more than that.

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The cleanup editing took even longer than the dictation, because I not only had to fix errors from the transcription, but I also had to add some things to make it flow better, so it was more like a regular edit. Instead of taking 60 minutes, it was closer to 90.

The transcription actually didn’t have many errors today. I held the podcasting microphone up to my mouth rather than relying on the boom mic stand, and I think that made the sound recording more accurate. The boom mic stand doesn’t quite put my mouth right in front of the pickup, and if I move around even a little, the sound quality decreases because I don’t speak very loudly. When I hold it in front of my mouth, my mouth is positioned better and I’m less likely to move my head away.

I also had to do some marketing work, which took another hour.

Only 2.5 hours of work today, but that’s better than it’s been since I had my IBS flareup. I hope to feel better as the days go by so that I can work for longer hours.

Writing streak: 358 days

My takeaway for today: Start small, only 30 minutes of dictation, to build up dictation stamina and reduce resistance to doing the editing.

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