Writers claim to dramatically increase their writing speed by speaking instead of typing In listening to podcasts and reading blogs, I’ve heard a lot about writers using dictation. This intrigued me. There are two reasons why I wanted to try dictation instead of typing when composing my first drafts. Why Diction? Increased Speed: The most […]
I’m a huge fan of dictation and use it for all my writing, not only my first draft but even as I edit. Using dictation, I can write about two thousand words an hour—compared to about five hundred words typing. My dictated words come out in pretty good shape, about 90 percent of the way […]
Speaking your punctuation when dictating slows you down, but it is possible to do So far I’ve only used dictation to write nonfiction. My next step is fiction. This becomes a little bit more complex because we must speak our punctuation. And dialogue requires much more of it. For example, here is how I would […]
Celebrate the benefits of using your voice to produce your first draft A couple of years ago I heard about authors using dictation to write the first draft of their books. Although intrigued by the idea of using speech-to-text software to write, I dismissed it as impractical. However, as more and more writers extolled the […]
Authors who use dictation claim a much higher writing speed I’ve recently been experimenting with using dictation to write and bought a USB headset to reduce dictation errors. So far I’m excited about the process and anxious to get better at it. To accomplish this, I’ve bought Dragon speech recognition software and will begin using […]
A quality headset reduces dictation errors Last week I shared my first steps at using dictation as an alternative way to write. To test dictation I didn’t invest any money in software or hardware, as I merely wanted to do a proof-of-concept before I spent any money. I used Google Docs, a Chrome browser, and […]
8 tips to staying physically fit while spending hours at the keyboard I’m not a medical doctor, and I don’t play one on TV. But I have compiled a list of what it takes to be a healthy writer. Some I’ve learned through research, others through experience and a couple by common sense. The main […]
Last week we talked about the importance of knowing how many words we write per hour. I’ve heard experienced fiction writers who say they consistently clip along at 2,000 words an hour. They write four or more books a year. This boggles my mind. In the stratosphere of word counts, I’ve heard other writers claiming […]