Camp report: Writing by dictation

I got off to a great start with Camp NaNoWriMo! I started writing at midnight last night, then I wrote again at a writers meet up yesterday evening, and as a result had logged over 3000 words for the day.

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Then I realized I should do some more writing later, after midnight, which is my normal time to write, so I’d be sure to have writing done for day two. I just didn’t feel like sitting in front of the computer. So I wrote a big chunk by dictating it into the speech recognition doohickey on my iPad and saved it in Google Docs.

That actually works pretty well, especially if you’re writing in first person and don’t need a lot of quotation marks.

It’s actually how I’m writing this post as well, although I’m writing it directly in the WordPress app on my iPad.

At any rate I feel like I got some really good writing done, with almost no typing and absolutely no handwriting. I was able to explore some of the motivations for one of my primary characters, by putting his history in his own words.

So that’s my report for today. If you don’t want to write, then talk to your iPad for a while. And then save it. Score!

2 responses to “Camp report: Writing by dictation”

  1. susielindau Avatar

    I love my iPad. I have recently written blog posts in the “notes” app, then copied and pasted. I had no idea I could dictate! I will try that! Thanks!

    1. Jackie Dana Avatar

      To be fair, the microphone in Google Docs and other apps isn’t perfect, so you still need to do some editing, but it’s faster than using the built-in keyboard. It’s also kind of fun to “speak” as a character, because it tends to come out a bit more naturally than typing out the words.

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