One of the funny things that happens around our house is that technology tends to take over how we do things, and coming from a technology background myself I always get a kick out of being able to introduce new toys and gadgets and stupid things and that sort of stuff into our lives. And that occasionally freaks Kristi out. Well, this episode of R&K has the rare distinction of not having been typed – at least in first draft – at a keyboard. I’m actually using a software package called Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate it instead. It took a total of about a minute, talking into a microphone at the computer while my words come up on the screen. Of course, being a writer, I will go back and edit it slightly and insist that I actually said it that way the first time.. but my GOD does this have the potential for making my life easier. Or at least fundamentally lazier.
Dragon takes probably about an hour to get set up. You have to train it to your voice, which means mainly sitting down and reading long passages out of preset texts that came already set up in the software. But once the program has had a chance to analyze your voice patterns, it actually does a pretty good job of transcribing. You’re going to have to correct it every so often, but once it figures things out, you can mostly just sit down and rattle off whatever random nonsense happens to float through your head. There really is a fine line between laziness and creativity; with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I think I might have crossed that Rubicon. No turning back now.
What I find interesting about doing voice dictation like this is that it does seem to save time. But what happens is eventually you find yourself watching the words on the screen, and being a writer (and so thinking about words visually first) you find yourself thinking more about what you’re saying, talking in paragraphs and processing your verbal skills according to visual dictates. Neither talking, nor writing, but a third thing entirely – a strange feeling. Jack Kerouac used to sit down and write pretty much off the top of his head, and someone once asked Truman Capote what he thought about that. Caputo famously replied, “That’s not writing – that’s typing!”
By that measure, I don’t know if this is writing or just talking. But what I do know is that I could easily get used to writing first drafts this way, at least until the computer systems here at the house decide to lock the pod bay doors and start complaining about failing transmitters. Then I might have to reconsider and go back to pen and paper.
I know how you feel. I have the same program. I had it for over a year and a half (Version 7). It took me over 6 hours to train it. the more you go through the training portion, the better the program works.
Even with 6 hours of the training, you will still have to make corrections, but it is great for the first draft. At 150wpm, it’s fast.
I have been using it to produce my newsletter, and blog. Also, I have been using it to prepare the lesson plan to teach the seminary students at the Asbury Theological Seminary in Orlando this Friday. It does cut down time on the keyboard.
Believe me. It can change your way of writing.
I’ve probably put about two hours or so into training it so far, so I’m still having to use pretty stilted enunciation (“The. Package. Weighs. Two. Pounds.”, etc.) – my hope is that somewhere down the line, I can just ramble into my Sony recorder and transcribe it. It’s close to that now; I think I just need to run through Alice in Wonderland a few more times.