Day 947 - Starting a dictation streak

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I decided to try a dictation streak since the writing streak has helped me immensely with my discipline. I think the writing streak also made me much more productive overall, even accounting for days I only did the bare minimum of work. If I hadn’t had the writing streak, I probably wouldn’t have done ANY work, and that might have gone on for longer than the number of days I only did the bare minimum. I think I got back into the regular swing of writing sooner because of the streak.

So, in light of that, I decided to try the same with dictation in the hopes that doing it every day will help me get better at it. I looked back on my writing diary and was able to see that I stopped dictation in November around the time book 4 was releasing and I was frantically trying to finish writing book 5. I was struggling with procrastination (so what else is new) and it was easier to sit and type than dictate.

But even then I hadn’t completely given up on dictation since I wanted to put in more effort (at some point) to get better at it and improve my writing speed. I was a bit disappointed when I was doing the edits on my book and could see that my writing with dictation wasn’t quite as elegant as my writing via typing, but I also think that part of the problem was that my self-editing is so bad. I think my editing has started to improve, especially if I am patient and take my time, which I can do now that I’m not under a deadline.

So I think it’s worth it to give the dictation a shot again. I’m going to try to do dictation every day, even if only 5 minutes.

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The dictation was slow today, but I felt that I was thinking more so that I could craft better sentences, which I don’t think is a bad thing. The only problem is that most writing books and articles talk about how “vomit writing” enables you to better tap into flow state and greater creativity, and I can’t accomplish that if I’m thinking hard.

I think I should attempt vomit writing, especially since with dictation I can simply repeat phrases until I say what sounds right to me. I tried to do this before, trying to relax and say the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s still rather hard for me. With vomit writing, the cleanup editing will be a beast, but if I dictate faster overall, that might improve my writing speed.

Writing streak: 426 days

Dictation streak: 2 days

My takeaway for today: Try a dictation streak to see if I can get better at it.

My second takeaway for today: I’ve tried to do this before, but let’s try again: Try to relax and say the first thing that comes to mind, and just repeat yourself until it sounds right.

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