I’ve always wondered what it would be like to dictate extended portions of a novel. Would it speed me up? Or would it be so confusing that the net effect would be to slow me down?
Full disclosure: I’m way behind in my NaNoWriMo word count. Normally, I wouldn’t be thinking about dictation – I could never afford the transcription fees, anyway.
But this is too good a deal not to try: Jott.com, the online reminder service, takes your verbal message, and renders it with their amazingly accurate voice recognition software, and sends it to your email – or someone else’s email, or your blog, your Facebook or Twitter feeds, etc. as you direct.
But here’s the point: they offer dictation packages of various kinds, including a pay-as-you-go plan if you want to ease into it.
When I decide my fingers have had enough, I’ll call Jott’s 800 number and start to dictate. I’ve set up a WordPress.com blog (private) that will collect and post my rough draft.
I used to dream about technology like this. But now that it’s here, will it help me write? Stay tuned.
Next time… straight talk from agent Miriam Altshuler, as my “Snarky Agent” series concludes with Part 3: Dos and don’ts from one of the smartest agents in the business.
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Who was that lady who always wore pink and wrote like two thousand romance novels? (Okay, slight exaggeration, but only slight.) She dictated every one of her novels, each one in a week or so, and hired secretaries or dictatees or whatever to write them down.
That process is far from the realm of my imagination. I mean, it’s not writing! It’s speaking! And how do you backspace?
I can’t write without the backspace key. No can do.
That would have to be Barbara Cartland, the Great Mother of the formula romance, who whipped off over 700 novels – counting the 160 unpublished at her death in 2000, which are now being marketed like crazy as The Pink Collection.
Dame Cartland (yep, Dame) was a young newspaper reporter who caught the eye of Lord Beaverbrook (yep, THAT Lord Beaverbrook, inventor of “yellow journalism,” the Rupert Murdoch of his day). M’Lord taught her how to write a romance (no record of how he did that), and the rest is history. At her peak, she was turning out 23 novels a year – and no doubt commanding a full regiment of stenographers.
I share your doubts about dictation. It’s foreign to me too, but every now and then I’ve had an interesting experience with it. Take comedy, a hobby of mine: most comics learn that speaking extempore into a tape recorder produces richer and more authentic material than sitting at a keyboard. But you have to come behind that initial blast, clean it up, edit it, or transform it appropriately – meaning ON THE PAGE. Ultimately that’s how I see dictation working. Nanowrimo is all about raw production, so it seems a perfect fit. We shall see. I’m banking on it to throw open a wide gate for my unconscious to romp through, bringing with it plenty of authentic, if unruly, raw stuff. Again, stay tuned.
Wow, that’s something. I didn’t know that. That’s like a novel every two weeks! I’ve done a 40K novella in a week, but… it’s not something I can reproduce, unless I have no money to buy food and am completely desperate and freaked, LOL.
I’d like to set something up in my car so I can dictate chapters while I drive. I do my best thinking when I drive and it’s always lost….
Easy to do. Take my set-up. I already have a cellphone with a bluetooth earphone/mic thingy. If I’m driving along and get inspired, I push a button on the earphone and the Verizon lady says, “Who do you want to call?” I say, “Jott,” and the call goes through (I’ve entered the Jott 800 number in my contacts). Then another (younger) lady’s voice says, “Who do you want to Jott?” and I say, “Rough Draft.” At that point I’m free to talk…and what I say will appear, accurately transcribed, the latest post on my (private) Wordpress.com blog that I set up just for this purpose. And whenever I’m ready, I’ll cut and paste to my actual draft.
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