Day 963 - Poorer dictation because of bad health

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I had a bad IBS flareup last night, and it was really hard to get started on writing today. I am a bit tired, but I also wasn't able to go walking outside and dictating because the weather was too cold and I simply don't have appropriate gloves to be able to dictate in cold weather (at least, cold for Northern California). When I walk for exercise, I can keep my hands in my jacket pockets, but I have to hold my digital recorder when I walk and dictate, and when I tried doing that today, my fingers were too cold and painful before I got even a block away from my house, so I had to turn back. The gloves I was wearing just didn't cut it.

So I had an excuse to spend money, and bought some gloves online so that I can walk and dictate in colder weather. Now, knowing my luck, the weather will turn superhot by the time the gloves arrive.

Because I'm feeling a bit tired today due to the IBS flareup last night, I might only do a short duration of dictation, and spend a little extra time doing marketing. Usually I do more marketing on Saturdays, but I think I'll do the marketing today instead and then do more writing tomorrow rather than the marketing.

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Well, I ended up dictating the entire scene. I paused a little more than halfway and wondered if I should stop, but ended up just continuing since I was so close to finishing the scene. I ended up dictating about an hour and 15 minutes. So once again, I ended up writing longer just to finish the scene, which isn’t a bad thing.

I could tell that my dictation was rougher today—I repeated myself a lot, I forgot to include things and made notes to myself to add certain things earlier in the scene, and I had a lot of silence as I tried to think of what exactly I wanted to have happen next.

I wonder if my poorer dictation session was because I’m feeling tired from my IBS flareup? I wouldn’t be surprised.

My actual writing speed wasn’t as slow as I thought—I dictated at about 2300 words an hour—but because I did a lot of repetition, I ended up needing to cut more than 500 words, and ended up with one 2300 usable words after the cleanup editing, which took a little longer than the dictation. My final writing speed, adding the time taken by both the dictation and cleanup, was a terrible 876 words per hour.

I did notice that I had a hard time getting myself to start on the cleanup editing. It’s partly because I don’t like doing it, and I can understand why a lot of people will just dictate straight through the book and then edit it after it’s done. But I know that’ll only make things a lot harder for me when I do the self-edit, especially since if Dragon misinterpreted something, I’ll probably have no idea what I was trying to say.

Because I got a late start today and I’m feeling a bit fatigued, I ended up skipping my cycling edit of the writing I did yesterday. What I’ll do is do the cycling edit on both scenes tomorrow. I know the cycling edit is important because the increased errors from my dictation especially makes it necessary, but sometimes it’s hard to motivate myself to do it since self-editing is so hard for me, and I’m already adding an extra editing pass with the cleanup editing. Since I got started late today, I didn’t do it before I ate dinner, and now that it’s late, I’m feeling too tired to want to do it now. So yes, I’m being a bit lazy.

Writing streak: 442 days

Dictation streak: 18 days

My takeaway for today: The morning after a bad IBS flareup can make my dictation worse than normal since I’m feeling tired.

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