Today, I went out for a short walk and tried to dictate my story for the first time on this book.
I still definitely need practice with dictation. It doesn’t come nearly as naturally to me as typing with my fingers and I get into my head too much at times. Plus, I need to be able to adjust to not being able to see what I’ve written.
It was a lot easier when I was dictating background information like character traits. Then, I was essentially dictating a bunch of bullet points. Yes, they were related, but each was a separate thought. Today, though, I tried to pick up from where I left off typing yesterday and continue my scene with voice. It’s a process I still need to get used to, but I’m going to keep practicing.
At least between the 20-minute walk and another half hour of cleaning up and adding to the dictation after I got back, I beat my word count target (704/500). Time-wise, I don’t think that’s actually more efficient than typing, but I hope that will come with time, too! Besides, I’m getting in a little bit of an editing pass, this way.