(no subject)
Today I tried an experiment.
My hand's been hurting a lot because of the typing and mousing that I've been doing at work. I'm working from home today, so I duly dragged out my headset and launched Dragon NaturallySpeaking. As I did this, I wondered what it would be like to dictate part of my novel. I thought about something I heard in a lecture on designing user interfaces. The instructor said to use paper and a sketch things out. The reason this is preferable, he explained is because when you type things into the computer and save them in a file, you think you know the this is a draft and therefore malleable, but your subconscious sees them as more cast in concrete. Hand drawn sketches seem more fluid. He also pointed out that it's a lot quicker to draw a rough box on a piece of paper than it is to even launch a program that can do it for you.
I wondered how vocalizing my thoughts instead of writing them down would affect my creativity. Would I feel less constrained and more freely creative? Could I speak out scenes that were in my head as they were happening?
So today I tried it.
The first problem I discovered was with dialogue. Of course you can tell Dragon to insert a quote before you start the dialogue, and at the end of the dialogue, but I didn't think of it. I didn't notice they were missing because I was dictating with my eyes closed, trying to make the words on the screen even more fluid in my mind. So, next time I'll remember to tell Dragon to quote.
The second problem was that Dragon doesn't seem to be understanding me as well as it used to. Gee, I wonder if the two fans running full speed have anything to do with that? ;-)
It's going to take a little getting used to dictating again, but maybe once have a little more practice, it might help me free up more when writing, but I've been doing a lot of writing at my desk at lunch these days and it's going to be impossible for me to dictate at my desk. I could always go outside and speaking to in a voice recorder.
Oh well, my lunch break is over. I dictated all of this posting with Dragon just to get used to it again. It's doing pretty well with this text. I'm speaking a little louder. Maybe that's overcoming the fan noise.
Next experiment: dictating into my voice recorder while outside.
My hand's been hurting a lot because of the typing and mousing that I've been doing at work. I'm working from home today, so I duly dragged out my headset and launched Dragon NaturallySpeaking. As I did this, I wondered what it would be like to dictate part of my novel. I thought about something I heard in a lecture on designing user interfaces. The instructor said to use paper and a sketch things out. The reason this is preferable, he explained is because when you type things into the computer and save them in a file, you think you know the this is a draft and therefore malleable, but your subconscious sees them as more cast in concrete. Hand drawn sketches seem more fluid. He also pointed out that it's a lot quicker to draw a rough box on a piece of paper than it is to even launch a program that can do it for you.
I wondered how vocalizing my thoughts instead of writing them down would affect my creativity. Would I feel less constrained and more freely creative? Could I speak out scenes that were in my head as they were happening?
So today I tried it.
The first problem I discovered was with dialogue. Of course you can tell Dragon to insert a quote before you start the dialogue, and at the end of the dialogue, but I didn't think of it. I didn't notice they were missing because I was dictating with my eyes closed, trying to make the words on the screen even more fluid in my mind. So, next time I'll remember to tell Dragon to quote.
The second problem was that Dragon doesn't seem to be understanding me as well as it used to. Gee, I wonder if the two fans running full speed have anything to do with that? ;-)
It's going to take a little getting used to dictating again, but maybe once have a little more practice, it might help me free up more when writing, but I've been doing a lot of writing at my desk at lunch these days and it's going to be impossible for me to dictate at my desk. I could always go outside and speaking to in a voice recorder.
Oh well, my lunch break is over. I dictated all of this posting with Dragon just to get used to it again. It's doing pretty well with this text. I'm speaking a little louder. Maybe that's overcoming the fan noise.
Next experiment: dictating into my voice recorder while outside.