Today, we’re going to talk about dictation. Last year, I made a significant change. I transitioned from writing all of my books by hand to dictation.
Someone introduced me to dictation, mentioning they could dictate 4,000 to 6,000 words an hour. I found that hard to believe. On a really good day, I could only manage 2,000 to 2,200 words an hour typing and it blew my mind to think that if I could reach even 3,000 words an hour, I would be ahead. With that in mind, I decided to give dictation a try.
At first, I didn’t like it. However, looming deadlines that I had overlooked forced me to reconsider abandoning my efforts to learn dictation when I realized the only way to meet these deadlines was to speed up my writing. So, I decided to give dictation a proper shot.
I spent 20 hours just focusing on understanding the process of dictation and getting familiar with its rhythm. It’s a different way of thinking about a story. Fortunately, within those 20 hours, I was able to mimic my writing style through speaking and since then, I’ve been using dictation more frequently.
Part of the reason I’ve continued to dictate is that it’s easier than typing. I am an edit-as-I-go type of person and with dictation, I can pre-edit in my head and then speak the story as I want it to be. With typing, I find myself going back and deleting a lot more, but when I dictate, the story comes out pretty much as I want it to be, and then I can go back and edit in a normal pass.
Initially, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy dictation. The idea of sitting there, staring at a computer screen, and telling a story seemed odd. However, I found ways to make it more interesting. One of the things I pay a lot of attention to is something called flow. Flow state is the description of an optimal experience, when you are perfectly aligned in your task with the amount of reward you’re going to get and the difficulty required to complete the task. When you have that perfect alignment, your brain registers it as an optimal experience, and you perform really well.
Being obsessed with optimization, I’ve tried to pay attention to flow in my life, especially in my writing. Dictation is no different. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make my process better. Dictation lends itself very well to flow because learning how to do it requires skill, and it’s something you can improve over time.
I’ve started making some changes. Initially, I used to dictate in silence. However, I started to get bored with that. So, I introduced a bit more challenge into my dictation. Now, I listen to music while I dictate. This slight change has helped my brain move into a flow state better, and my dictation has really sped up.
Let’s talk about what that actually means. I’m sure you’re curious about the hard numbers. I typically set my writing sprints for half an hour. In that half an hour, I can dictate between 1,300 and 1,700 words on average. This means over the course of an hour, I’m typically producing around 3,000 words.
This is a little lower than I would like. I would love to reach closer to 4,000 words. When I’m really in the zone, I can get close to 4,000 words. This means that four hours of solid work gets me about 12,000 words, which is fantastic. 12,000 words is about five chapters for me. Five chapters would have taken me 10 to 12 hours to write if I was typing.
The ability to compress a full workday into a four-hour period has significantly impacted my productivity. I can write in the morning and know that I have all the writing done for the day that I need. Or, if I’m feeling particularly inspired, I can write in the morning and afternoon and effectively do two days of work in one day.
In full disclosure, it’s rare that I am as productive in my second set of sprints as I am in my first. However, it’s not uncommon for me to produce 20,000 to 25,000 words in a day when I’m really in the flow. More importantly, I’ve been able to do this without any noticeable drop in quality. In fact, my quality has been improving because I’ve been practicing more.
When you write 10,000 words, that’s a lot. When you double it to 20,000 words, you’re getting twice as much practice. As long as you’re paying attention to what you’re writing and not just vomiting words onto the page, you can continually improve, and your rate of improvement increases as well.
I apologize for getting nerdy. The point is that I’ve been able to drastically increase the amount that I write. Even if I was still doing this part-time and only able to work for an hour or two during the day, the ability to produce 3,000 words in one hour is phenomenal.
I understand that not everyone will be able to dictate. However, it has worked wonders for me. So much so that as of mid-March, when I’m writing this blog, I’ve already written four books this year. I anticipate having close to six done by the end of this month. I probably could have gone even faster, but I took two weeks of vacation and got sick.
A year ago, I set out to determine whether or not dictation was for me. Now, I’ve completely switched over. I tried to write something by hand the other day and it felt odd. I could get back into it and I did at a pretty good pace. However, dictation is so much more efficient for me that I’ll probably stick with it indefinitely.
Who knows? Maybe there will come a day when I decide to write everything longhand. If that day comes, I will report to you on that as well. However, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Dictation has been so efficient for me that I’ll probably continue doing it because I’d love to reach that 6,000 words an hour stage.
Have you tried dictation? I’d be curious to know how it’s turned out for you. Again, I understand that it’s not a process that works for everyone, but for my creativity, it has worked wonders.
YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/10kKlwm7KzM
Thanks for reading and watching.
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