Day 999 - Better notes makes for faster, smoother dictation

It’s rather depressing that I have to work around my IBS in order to get writing done. I’m still working on adjusting my schedule so that I can continue to work on my book despite my health issues. I got a late start today because my IBS was causing me problems last night, and so not only did I go to bed late but I also got up late and had to deal with some intestinal pain.

I tried to get started on work as soon as possible and not waste time in the morning. A couple days ago, I blogged about wanting to do my writing earlier in the day because I seem to write better when I do that, so I tried to quickly get started on some dictation of my Regency as soon as I finished breakfast.

The dictation was a little slow, and I think it’s because I hadn’t done enough blocking of the scene. I had to spend about 10 or 15 minutes before I started dictating in order to think about the scene and figure out why and how things progressed the way they did. And even then I had a hard time with the key emotional moment in the scene.

This just reinforced for me the idea that I probably need better blocking notes in order to be more efficient when I’m dictating. Which seems paradoxical since blocking takes more time and I am trying to do dictation in order to write faster.

But I think that when the dictation is going smoothly, thanks to good blocking notes, then I tend to write a lot faster and I can relax and think about the words rather than worrying about how I’m going to get from point A to point B to point C.

So I think I probably need to devote some time each day to doing blocking of next day’s scene(s), or at least looking over it to see if I need to add more blocking notes. I feel like the preparation helps me to write better because I already know where I’m going, so I’m free to express myself in the prose.

I only had a short scene to write this morning, and when I was going to move to dictating the next scene, I realized I really needed to block it better, otherwise it would take only a few minutes to dictate the scene and I’d have to make a note to myself to add a bunch of stuff into the middle. I think I’d rather do the blocking first, and be able to dictate that middle portion rather than adding it later in edits.

So I took some time to do more blocking for a couple more scenes, and the dictation for the second scene of the day went much more smoothly, although I’m not entirely sure if it was because of the blocking or because I tend to get better at dictation the more time I devote to it in a day. This time, the dictation was split by some time spent blocking the next scene, but it still felt much easier to dictate for the second scene than it had when I first started off on the first scene.

Some of my recorded writing time was carried over into Sunday but I’m still including it in my Saturday totals. It surprisingly took me less time to do 2 scenes in the Regency than I had expected, probably because they were both on the shorter side, which is reflected in my lower word count. I also should have spent a bit more time working on my Hawaii book—I only worked on one scene—but since I had gotten a late start because of my IBS, I was already tired and decided to quit for the day. Still, I’m pleased with my 4000-ish words done on the Regency and a scene done in my Hawaii book. The time also reflects my Japanese language study, some research reading for the Regency, and about an hour and a half of doing marketing work.

My takeaway for today: Blocking each scene may take time, but once I know where the scene is going, I can dictate with more freedom and concentrate on expressing myself in the prose.