Parallels for Mac and Dragon

I wasn't able to work first thing after I woke up this morning because I had a bad sinus headache and an IBS flareup that was causing nausea. Since I wasn't able to concentrate very well, I decided to do other things besides writing prose. I had been thinking about dictating directly into my computer using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, so I decided to bite the bullet and set that up.

I should have known that getting Dragon NaturallySpeaking onto my laptop was going to be painful.

First I had to renew my subscription to Parallels for Mac, and since I’m an idiot, I signed up for the Pro upgrade for higher processing speeds. I get a discount for the first year but next year Parallels is going to cost $200.

And of course since I’m buying Parallels, I also have to get Windows. I thought I could get away with using Windows 10, but it turns out my MacBook Pro has a chip that can’t play nice with the ISO file for Windows 10. So I have to download Windows 11.

All this to run ONE PROGRAM.

I had my old version of Dragon which I had been using before. I finally managed to install it onto my computer, only to find that it was too old to work with Windows 11.

So of course I had to spend even more money to buy Dragon NaturallySpeaking 16, which seems to be the only version that works with Windows 11.

To make matters worse, I went to Nuance.com to buy it, but the website wouldn’t let me log in, even after I requested a new password. So then I tried to create a new registration instead, it said my email address was already being used. I had already heard some horror stories about Nuance’s customer service, but it was very frustrating that I couldn’t even use their website to buy their product.

I finally went to Amazon to buy it from there. And oooooh that was painful on my wallet.

All this was not making my headache any better. That was probably why I was so crabby when dealing with Nuance’s website.

I finally downloaded Dragon 16 onto my computer, but I haven’t installed it yet. I might do it later tonight, or I might just put it off to tomorrow.

My IBS finally started feeling better, and I’m still trying to keep a dictation streak, so I decided to dictate for about 5 minutes, which turned into 45 minutes. I’m not unhappy about that—I got a lot written in my Christian contemporary romantic suspense.

I’m trying to flip back and forth between writing my contemporary manuscript and my Regency manuscript. My contemporary book is due April 1, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to write it, but I also want to get my Regency book out in March. 

I considered just writing the Regency first, but it’s looking like it’s going to be a lot longer than I had expected. I don’t have a firm deadline for the Regency, but I do for the contemporary book, and I don’t want to be late. There’s a chance that the Regency will take too long to write and will take up time I need to write the contemporary.

So I decided to work on both at the same time. I usually do one book each day, but there were a couple days I did one book in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

The dictation started off a bit slow, I think because it’s been a few days since I worked on my contemporary book, so it took a little while to get back into the story. But once I did, I started dictating a lot faster.

I wrote 1224 words in 48 minutes, and then I took another 24 minutes to do the editing. This is about the same as my last dictation session, where the editing took about half the amount of time as the dictation. My final word count ended up being about 1000 words per hour, taking into account the editing, which isn’t bad at all. It’s faster than when I was typing, and I’m pleased with the prose.

Since I didn’t have Dragon set up on my computer, I used Dragon Anywhere, and while the errors aren’t bad, I definitely needed to go over it in Scrivener to look for errors, since Grammarly didn’t catch all of them.

Even though I can still see my words on the screen as I dictate, so it’s just like when I type, and even though I’m still editing as I go, with the exception of looking up words or research points, I’m still writing a bit faster.

I’m guessing that it’s partially because the act of dictation is faster than typing, but I also think I’m pausing a bit less after each sentence. When typing, I often found myself stopping to think for several minutes about what I wanted to write next. For some reason, when dictating, I’m not stopping to think as long.

I don’t really know why this is. I’m wondering if it’s because I’m pacing in my office as I dictate, and that helps me to think better so I don’t pause as long.

So when I try dictating directly into my computer, maybe I need to continue to pace in between sentences? I’m currently using a podcast mic, so I can’t hold it and pace and dictate. Do I need to invest in a better headset with a mic? I’m leery about spending even MORE money, so maybe I’ll just try to use the headset I currently have and see how accurate (or not) it is.

I didn’t work for very long today, but I’m glad I got any work done considering how crappy I felt when I woke up.

Also, as a reminder, I’m deliberately not writing on Sundays, so my streak picks up from Saturday.