Editing while dictating

I fully intended to start writing first thing today, but I overslept and only just made it to some online meetings on time. My meeting with my graphic designer especially was very productive.

Once the meetings were done, I probably should have jumped right into writing, but I was a little brain-tired and ended up doing some light marketing work instead until I had to make dinner. I had neglected to check my email yesterday, so I spent time cleaning out my inbox, which I had finally cleared to ZERO a few days ago. I also did some work that needed to be done for the launch of my next historical romance book in (hopefully) March.

I immediately started dictation after dinner. I wrote for a little over an hour and even with the time to edit my dictation after I put it in Scrivener, my words per hour rate was about 800 words, which isn’t bad. I only wrote about 1000 words, but it’s better than nothing, especially considering I also had 2 online meetings.

I definitely think that I wrote more words because I was dictating. I was able to get words down a lot faster than when I type, so I managed to get through two of my blocking segments fairly quickly before I got tired.

I think the dictation is getting easier for me. I find myself stopping and pausing less, and the dialogue is getting smoother. Even though I stop to edit as I go, even the editing is becoming faster. Also, since I’m dictating, I don’t look up synonyms or check research facts when I’m writing—I simply put an asterisk in the text and keep going, and I look things up later when I’m editing. That might also help me write faster.

It’s still taking me some time to edit after I finish dictating, mostly because I’m looking up words or checking research facts. If I were typing, I’d be doing this as I wrote, so I’d still be taking this time. But I realized that doing this kind of work takes up less brain energy than writing prose, so I am able to do it even when I’m feeling tired.

I think that’s another reason why the dictation enables me to write faster—I write prose when my brain is freshest, and then do the editing and looking stuff up when my brain is more tired. When I do this editing and looking stuff up when I’m typing, it takes up time when my brain is still fresh, so I end up writing fewer words before I get tired.

If I had been able to write earlier in the day, I probably would have been able to write longer and I wouldn’t have gotten tired as quickly as I did after dinner. But I think the dictation enabled me to write more words than I would have with typing during a time when my energy was already started to flag.

I have to say, I’m enjoying the dictation more now that I can look at my screen and correct errors as I go. I realize it’s not the most efficient way to dictate, but it really reduces the errors I have to fix compared to when I transcribe an MP3 file. It also makes it easier for me to rewrite sentences that don’t come out quite right.

Since I’m editing as I go, I’m spending less time doing the clean-up editing than when I was transcribing my dictation. Also, unlike with transcription, I’ve already revised my prose to be sharper and cleaner, so I don’t have to also be editing my dictation to improve the writing itself, it’s already been done. I think that makes the writing quality as high as when I type, which was what I wanted. If the dictation wasn’t giving me high-quality writing, I would have gone back to typing.

I do find that I have to speak more slowly using Dragon Anywhere than when I record and transcribe. Otherwise it has more errors. However, when I enter my custom words, Dragon Anywhere does a fairly good job with them. And once I paste the dictation into Scrivener, my free version of Grammarly finds most of the more obvious errors like wrong words that Dragon Anywhere inserted because I was mumbling.

In my Daily Writing Stats below, I only included my actual writing time and not the time I was in meetings or doing marketing and business work. But my total number of hours today was about 7.5, so I ended up putting in a full day’s work.