Saturday, April 25, 2009

Dragon Speech :)

Given my reduced writing time I have decided to try out a new product. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a voice transcription program and I am wondering if this might be a way to speed up first draft writing--especially as my typing skills are not all that good. Even after writing quite a few books I am still a two-finger typist. I look forward to being able to give it a go....

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Couple of things that may be useful.

1) DNS can transcribe from hand-held devices, including whatever comes with a Blackberry. I dictate walking the dogs, upload and transcribe. Voila. There may be barking.

2) Two people have told me accuracy is improved by upgrading the headset. It's on my own To Do list.

I find it good for notes, first drafts, or entering something already in hard copy (i.e. handwriting or notes from here and there in a book that makes no sense to scan.)

Not sure how well it works for the other stages of a book, but keep us posted.

veinglory said...

Thanks for the tips. If I could use the dog walking time that would add a lot more productivity. I was acrually releived to get a thundrstorm today as it means he doesn;t want to walk....

Page Smith said...

Please, oh, please let us know how that works for you. I tried it years ago and found it too difficult because I have to "listen to the voice in my head" in order to write--which is hard to do while I'm flapping my gums.

I hate talking about that aspect of writing. It always makes me sound more doolalee than I actually am.

Helen said...

I tried it, but didn't have much success with transcribing my recordings. This is probably because I didn't have a great headset. Also, the best times for me to dictate stories would have been while walking or while driving, and unfortunately the kids were always around at both those times.

Still, if you have a good headset, it may be useful. I found that I lost some time while correcting transcriptions, but if you've got a good headset, let me know how well it works out.