As most of you know, I love to experiment. I'm always taking new ideas, tweaking them, and trying them out with my own processes. Over the years, I've tried outlining, fast drafting, beats, dictation, etc etc. and each time, my process has changed a little to make me a better storyteller and a faster writer. Those are my two main goals as an author: better and faster. Since I do much of the publishing process myself, better and faster are the most appropriate goals for my business.
I've found dictation to be a huge boon to my writing career. It's relieved a lot of pain in my hands and given me mobility while writing, instead of sitting all the time at a desk. But dictation into the computer, watching the words come up on the screen, is slow for me. I'm constantly re-reading things I wrote and correcting. I'm not as fast as I'd like to be. So, I decided that my next step will be transcription. Transcription is when you speak into a recording device (like the voice recorder shown above or your phone or whatever), and then later, you bring the audio file into Dragon for it to be transcribed. This is something I want to conquer this year. I've avoided it in the past because of my poor short term memory, but I think I have a way to make that easier.
I'm going to start writing out what I want to happen in the scenes I want to dictate ahead of time. I'm going to sit down and write them out by hand in notebooks, hoping that by leaving my devices behind, I'll be less distracted and my memory will stick better this way. There are two notebooks here because, in the next few weeks, I hope to start writing on two books at once. I tried this in December and really liked the process. Work on one book for a bit, then switch to the other, making sure to hit word counts for each every day. That way I'm always moving forward.
So my next experimental process will be to brainstorm my scene in the morning in the notebook, dictate into the voice recorder until I've accomplished that scene, switch to the other book and do the same. Then take a break while Dragon is transcribing each file and spend the afternoon making corrections and adding to what I dictated. Repeat each day until the books are done.
I'm wondering how well I'll do! I'll be sure to let you know how the experiments turn out!
Let us know how this goes! It will be interesting to hear if this new technique works for you. I like to hear how you’re always trying new things. And better and faster sound like two good goals to have for your business!
I really think that getting away from my devices and seeing a road map for dictating, that I wrote, right in front of me, should help. Now I just need to work on the discipline to do it consistently, which is usually where I fall short in my experiments.
I’m determined to do this. I tried using my phone once but it takes too much space. I find I get tired when I dictate into the computer. This way I could walk around and not look back at what I wrote.
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