![\"The](\"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Voice-Notes-1024x585.jpeg\")
If you look closely at the screen in the generated image, the document title is \u201cThe Dic ttigg\u201d it has to mean something, right?😂<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019ve been thinking about the future of this newsletter over the last few weeks. I am trying to decide what I want to get out of writing every week. I\u2019m still not certain, but changes are coming. See the final thoughts for more information if you\u2019re interested. 😉<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n For short-form, such as this newsletter, the piece\u2019s theme is firmly fixed, and dictation is reasonably straightforward. The subject has been thought through, so dictating the bulk of the text shouldn\u2019t be much of a problem.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The same can\u2019t be said of long-form fiction, unfortunately. There is no subject matter around which to base our writing, not really. Just ideas swirling around in the grey mass we call a brain. There\u2019s nothing to pin down, nothing concrete anyway. Life sucks as a creative sometimes, but we wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Speech to Text: Dictation-Driven Creative Writing <\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n As you may gather, my current long-form project is fiction. The genre isn\u2019t important, but working out a technique and a process that works for me is the point of the exercise. For everyone, this will be different; the only way to find what works for you is to try things out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n Winging it with dictations, at first, produces an almost incoherent mess. Combinations of self-doubt and feeling stupid about talking to myself. The transcribed text is full of repeated words, bad translations, and plenty of \u2018ums\u2019 and \u2018ers\u2019. If this were as good as it will get, I\u2019d be quicker typing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I needed some methodology or technique that suited me. I had a few different options to try out. I know that some podcasts have a simple script consisting of bullet points. Maybe that would work?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I chose a scene that needed work and then wrote a bullet point-based script. Using this, I dictated the scene, bullet point by point, essentially following the script. As you may suspect already, the result was lamentable\u2014that\u2019s an understatement.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Using the scripted bullet points, I dictated through each bullet point from the script, attempting to produce a reasonably well-crafted narrative. But all that was achieved was a near-incoherent rambling, broken down into nice paragraphs. Obviously, not the way to go, at least not yet. Perhaps when I\u2019ve had much more practice with dictation, it may be an option for certain texts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n It wasn\u2019t the most successful method unless the aim was to produce a bulleted list of bullshit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n It was time to stand back and figure out exactly what I was trying to achieve. I had a general outline for the scene, which I expanded into smaller sections. In my mind\u2019s eye, I could see how the scene was intended to play out. Rather than try and dictate my way through the entire scene, working through the scene one section at a time would be far more effective, I hoped.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The trick seems to be not to attempt to dictate the entire section in one sitting. Enjoy the creative process rather than stressing out and feeling self-conscious. When I needed to pause, I paused. The resulting transcription was a lot closer to the desired narrative. However, it needed some serious editing later in Scrivener.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This process felt a lot more natural to me. I knew, in general terms, how the scene would unfold. By breaking it down into smaller sections, I could dictate my way through the entire scene in less than an hour, pasting the notes into my Scrivener project in the appropriate order. Another hour to edit the scene, and I had the bare bones completed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019ve been thinking about what type of creative writer I might be. Was I an Outliner or a Discovery writer (the more common name is a Pantser, but I prefer the term Discovery writer; thanks to Joanna Penn for this)? It turns out that I\u2019m an Outliner or perhaps some hybrid. For those interested, check out this article from Writer\u2019s Digest: What Is a Pantser in Writing?<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n Last week, I touched on the tools used for dictation, including complicated half-functional Shortcuts on my iPhone and paid Apps such as VoicePen. After faffing around for several hours trying to find something that worked for me and my style choices, I remembered that all Apple devices had built-in dictation for several years. With each iteration of the software, it has only gotten better.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019ve settled on using the standard Notes App, mostly on my iPhone but occasionally on my iPad or directly into the MacBook. The solution is so simple and works like a charm: Open a new note, optionally add a note title, select the Microphone button, and then start dictating. It can\u2019t get any simpler than that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n With practice, the dictation process becomes easier. I can even start to dictate directly from the Mac to Ulysses. However, for some reason, it doesn\u2019t feel as natural as dictating directly into an iPhone Note. I think this is mainly because, with the iPhone, I can walk around thinking and dictating as I go. Sitting in front of a computer doesn\u2019t feel as intuitive.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Commands for dictating text on Mac <\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n It\u2019s simple to copy and paste into the writing app; that would be Ulysses for this newsletter. For long-form, Scrivener. This article was written mainly, or should I say dictated, via a simple note. Once I felt the basic outline was completed, l stopped dictation, sat at the MacBook, and copied the text into a new Ulysses document.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019ve said this before, but there is no harm in repeating it. Don\u2019t you love the Apple ecosystem?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n Honestly, it hasn\u2019t helped with this week\u2019s newsletter much. But that was down to spending too much time experimenting with dictation for the long-form project, going out for lunch with my wife, and taking more than half a day off to watch Dune Part Two.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I am getting there. Dictation is like anything else; you must practice it to reap benefits. At the beginning of the week, I was lucky if the result produced 200 words of (almost) finished text. But by the end of the week, I\u2019ve been consistently and comfortably meeting my session word count target, which currently stands at a modest 750 words per session.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I can see that, with more practice, I should be able to raise the target to 1000 words or more confidently. If this works out as I expect and hope, I\u2019ll have the first draft ready for editing a month or two earlier than expected. This is a good thing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n Over the last week, I\u2019ve been dictating everything first. This is not only for this newsletter but also for a long-form project. It does get easier\u2014not necessarily better, but easier.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019ve been writing this newsletter for more than a year now. While my audience has grown during this year, it remains modest. I\u2019m not surprised, though; looking through the last fifty-plus articles, I see that not only has the subject area of each article changed over time, but my writer\u2019s voice has also changed completely.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I know that to build an audience, a writer must consistently write within one or two areas. Perhaps that will come in time, or perhaps not. It depends on me, of course, and what I write about in the future.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The newsletters seem to have four main areas: Business, Creativity, Mental Health, and Solopreneurship. Perhaps it\u2019s time to concentrate only on related areas or split out the content.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I\u2019m interested to hear from you, my readers; what do you think?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n See more articles, posts, and discussions about business and Creative Writing on Medium here<\/a>. If you have not already done so, subscribe to Medium<\/a>. Or follow me here<\/a> on Substack. The Substack newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I would appreciate the support; you won\u2019t regret it. 👍<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I apologise to my readers for some of the spellings you may feel are incorrect. I was born and brought up in the United Kingdom, and this is the spelling I am comfortable with (Grammarly is happy with it anyway).<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The built-in dictation functionality on Apple devices helps enormously. However, the dictation itself turned out to be far more difficult than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,37,24],"tags":[62,25,70,69,71],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple","category-creativity","category-writing","tag-apple","tag-creative-writing","tag-creativity","tag-dictation","tag-free-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1275,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Lengths We Speak: Dictation’s Dual Path<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nScripting Speech: The Bullet-Point Experiment<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nMindful Musings: Dictation’s Deliberate Path<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nKeeping it Super Simple: Dictation’s Ease<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/kodifyit.com\/Main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/A-New-Dictated-Note-1024x473.jpeg\")
\r\n\r\n\r\nProductivity: Measuring Dictation’s Impact<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nFinal Thoughts and Future Plans<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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