For those of you not interested in dictating your books, and just want a push to up your word counts, this blog will not be a constant commercial for the dragon software. Just a day or two more, and it will just be part of the routine. I'll be back to getting in my 4000 to 5000 words a day very soon.
I was pretty excited to get started today.
I was all ready to go to the park when I realized the wind was blowing pretty hard, which doesn't work well with microphones, so I ended up going to the basement and using the treadmill instead.
I walked for ten minutes and got a half mile in when the phone rang and my day was lost to TWO family emergencies. But! In between emergencies I worked on my Dragon profile so I it was ready to transcribe the audio file from my recorder. And hours later, I was finally able to see my word count. (Of course I won't have to do this set up again, so next time I'll be able to see my word count as soon as the file is uploaded.)
Drum-roll please...451 words.
Okay, now. Of course it's a small word count, but not for TEN MINUTES! And I was interrupted by a phone call. If I'd have been at the park and done it for 60 minutes straight, and kept up the pace (which seemed mighty slow to me) I might have written nearly 3000 words in my first try ever!
Let me add that I was winging it. I had no idea where the story was going to go, or what the scene would have in it. I was simply picking up at the end of the last scene I remember writing for this book (a sequel to a book I wrote years ago). And I wasn't just spitting gibberish. I actually had IDEAS come to me and spit from my mouth! Real, new ideas.
I mentioned yesterday that I was afraid of trying to edit vocally. Then, when I was forced to do it, I learned it easily. I was just as relieved this time. Deep down I was terrified this wasn't going to work. I was afraid it was just going to be another thing to set on my shelf and say I tried it once. And even though I'd gotten my hopes up, that I might really be able to exercise and lose all this book weight, I was really worried. Determined to give it my best, but worried. I can imagine some of you are feeling the same way too.
I am not surprised so many people give up in the learning phase. It's going to take some time before I'm going to be able to get my punctuation right without it messing up my train of thought. But I'm willing to be patient while the program learns to understand me. I'm going to stick with the headphone I have and hope the machine gets used to it. Then I'll buy a better one if it doesn't.
But if I've figured this out, anyone can. I'm expecting the transition from keyboard to speech will be about the same adjustment was it was to go from pen and paper to keyboard. I thought I'd never ever be able to compose original thoughts without having my hands on the paper, without my thoughts coming out of the end of a pen. But that changed. And I can change again. I'm not too old yet, damn it. Another year, and I might have been iffy, especially if I didn't get in shape.
So.
I expected to be able to walk about half a mile before I gave out. The truth is, if that phone hadn't rang, I probably would have walked for a mile before I was winded. THAT is amazing, since I've not been walking for a long long time. But what was even more amazing was the fact that I was unaware of the fact that I was walking at all.
It was odd. The walking distracted me from listening too closely to myself. The speaking distracted me from the walking. And I didn't feel like I'd gotten much recorded at all. I was SHOCKED there were 451 words on there. Absolutely shocked.
Tomorrow, I have a lunch planned with a mystery writer and Rock Jr. Then Rock Jr. and I will be headed to the park to walk off the lunch! He can play on the splash pad while I walk around. It's going to be great.
And while I was a chicken and used a future book for this experiment, I'm going to get back to my current works in progress. I'll be working on the Western Thriller. I think a few hours of dictation should finish that puppy up. Then tomorrow night I'll be editing Isobelle.
Since I bore easily (just learning that about myself) I'm going to keep a day book and a night book. The day book will be whatever is still in first draft stage, and the night book will be whatever I'm editing. If that doesn't work, I'll switch them. I can't see my body clock changing any time soon, so I'll edit in the dead of night since I can't walk at the park at that time. I guess I can use the treadmill if it comes to that.
Enough of my dull life.
What are YOU doing?
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