I have had almost one week of being 'on my own' not working anymore in the outside world. It certainly hasn't been a week of no work however!
I can tell I am still not 'over' dreading phone calls to drop what I am doing and run off to some remote location. It's going to take some time for that 'inner knot' to loosen. I'm being patient with myself.
I'm all excited about a development this week that happened because of a whim.
I have software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking (version 6). I have tried to use it before to dictate stories. I even used it for some of the novel, which I regretted because it gave such poor results that took me a long time to muddle through in the first edit. Well, since that time, I have bought a newer CPU. I decided to re-install that program and give it a try again.
Wow! It worked VERY well. I would say for the pages of text I dictated, there was a 90 % accuracy rate. Cool!
Then I got to reconsidering the whole idea of buying the Alphasmart. I have just been looking for some other way to compose than sitting at this computer all the time. I just can't deal with it. And I thought that this tool might be just the ticket.
But after the Dragon experiment, I was uncertain.
Using the dictation software does require you to be hooked up to the computer, but the mic cord is long enough to reach across the room where I could sit in comfort in my reading chair. BUT....
(OMG, the labyrinth of her thought processes is enough to make me lose my punctuation!)
BUT.... as I was saying, dictating is not a very natural way to write, for me anyway. What to do?
Then it dawned on me. I can take a pen and paper with me virtually anywhere. They don't require batteries, software, learning curves or high price tags. I can write anywhere I go. In almost any situation.
THEN, I will bring my notebook to the computer, and READ what I have written into Dragon NaturallySpeaking! Voila!
I have always prefered composing stories using pen and paper.... but if you do that, then you still have to type it up, which just adds an obnoxious, time consuming step to the process. This way I can bypass that step. Or at least make it a lot more enjoyable.
AND, if my experiments work out well, I will not have to invest 500 dollars in a new bit of hardware, along with its accompanying learning curve.
Is that cool or what?
Of course it all depends on how smoothly the system works. I haven't acually tried it yet.
Today is the day. I'm going to begin a short story I have had in my head for months.
But naturally, I had to talk about it ad nauseum first.
It's what Bloggers DO ya know.
(Don't I know it. Don't I know it.... more's the pity.)
I can tell I am still not 'over' dreading phone calls to drop what I am doing and run off to some remote location. It's going to take some time for that 'inner knot' to loosen. I'm being patient with myself.
I'm all excited about a development this week that happened because of a whim.
I have software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking (version 6). I have tried to use it before to dictate stories. I even used it for some of the novel, which I regretted because it gave such poor results that took me a long time to muddle through in the first edit. Well, since that time, I have bought a newer CPU. I decided to re-install that program and give it a try again.
Wow! It worked VERY well. I would say for the pages of text I dictated, there was a 90 % accuracy rate. Cool!
Then I got to reconsidering the whole idea of buying the Alphasmart. I have just been looking for some other way to compose than sitting at this computer all the time. I just can't deal with it. And I thought that this tool might be just the ticket.
But after the Dragon experiment, I was uncertain.
Using the dictation software does require you to be hooked up to the computer, but the mic cord is long enough to reach across the room where I could sit in comfort in my reading chair. BUT....
(OMG, the labyrinth of her thought processes is enough to make me lose my punctuation!)
BUT.... as I was saying, dictating is not a very natural way to write, for me anyway. What to do?
Then it dawned on me. I can take a pen and paper with me virtually anywhere. They don't require batteries, software, learning curves or high price tags. I can write anywhere I go. In almost any situation.
THEN, I will bring my notebook to the computer, and READ what I have written into Dragon NaturallySpeaking! Voila!
I have always prefered composing stories using pen and paper.... but if you do that, then you still have to type it up, which just adds an obnoxious, time consuming step to the process. This way I can bypass that step. Or at least make it a lot more enjoyable.
AND, if my experiments work out well, I will not have to invest 500 dollars in a new bit of hardware, along with its accompanying learning curve.
Is that cool or what?
Of course it all depends on how smoothly the system works. I haven't acually tried it yet.
Today is the day. I'm going to begin a short story I have had in my head for months.
But naturally, I had to talk about it ad nauseum first.
It's what Bloggers DO ya know.
(Don't I know it. Don't I know it.... more's the pity.)