Not fast enough!

[richard]

I can type , oh average speed I guess. My mind is so much faster that I frequently forget what I wanted to type. Either the beginningor the end of the story remains. What does get put down on paper doesn't look like the original thought at all.
I was either to busy writing or to busy thinking. I get flashbacks sometimes, usually on a very bad moment. Just have think something else brilliant and take it SLOWnext time I guess.
Sound familiar anyone?

Typo.

[crystalwizard]

Get a voice recorder and talk, then learn how to transcribe from your recordings.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

Visit my art gallery on art wanted at
http://artwanted.com/crystalwizard

All my books in print:
http://sojourn.omnitech.net

[richard]

I was afraid someone was going to say that. I was planningto go on and just live with it [img]/emoticons/lol.gif[/img] though. Maybe.





Typo.

[MichaelEhart]

I have found that a modicum of bourbon is efficacious in these situations.

Or several modicums.

"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review. August 2007
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, July 2007
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, coming soon!
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, March 2007
"The Death of Number 23" Dark Krypt,Fall 2006
"Servant of the Manthycore" Sword Review, April 2006
"Voice of the Spoiler" Better Fiction,Spring 2006
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October 2005
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November 2005
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October 2005
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/

[Bill Ward]

Take a typing course...you may not come out of it with the ability to touch type, but you will force yourself (more importantly, you'll force your fingers) to learn where the keys are. A voice recorder might work for some stuff, liek notes and rough outlines, but I really don't see it as any good for actual story copy. For one thing, I don't think its actually any faster than a decent typing speed, and for another I think it would interfere with thinking (mouth open, brain closed). Also, it is really hard to speak in grammatically correct complete sentences organized in paragraphs with transitions and nice word variation and rythym, etc. And when you dictate you can't go back and correct a word, and you have to spend time transcribing it later, too.

And I know in my case I could never speak in a way at all close to how I write, let alone in the voice of whatever narrator I adopt, and I do a lot of my thinking with my fingers anyway. Better to learn to type, and to concentrate. With practice it becomes much more natural.

Another thing, nobody can really keep pace with their thoughts, because their thoughts, in additon to being 'instantaneous' don't neccessarily run in the needed order. So, when you get a flash of insight into something that comes later in the story, quickly jot it down or type in out on your manuscript (just skip a few lines and drop it down there, my manuscripts are littered with notes like this); even if you don't type it all out, which you probably shouldn't , putting the important words down will trigger your memory later. Another thing, if you are leaving all your thinking to the last minute and only thinking your way through a story as you write it, you really arean't ready to write it. Either let it stew in your mind for a few days, or sketch a loose outline, or both. You need that organization to have any kind of freedom when you sit down to write.

Finally, there's always a difference betwen what's in your mind and what's on the page, you just have to have the confidence in your words and not feel like there's something wrong because the scene you had envisioned perfectly in your mind half and hour ago seems a little different now that you've gotten to it. It's a fluid process, and you've got to let the language of the page share some of the authority with the language of your imagination.

[erazmus]

oh for heavens sake! Buy some spiral notebooks and write by hand. Most slow typist can write much quicker than they type, and you have a chance to self edit as you type it in later.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
'Psyched Up' in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
'Dutchman Rescue'in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

'An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern' in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php

[Jordan Lapp]

WDWard said...


And I know in my case I could never speak in a way at all close to how I write, let alone in the voice of whatever narrator I adopt, and I do a lot of my thinking with my fingers anyway. Better to learn to type, and to concentrate. With practice it becomes much more natural.

For a while I used Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, but I stopped for much the same reason. What I speak and what I writeare two different things. I think you use a different section of your brain when you speak than you do when you write...

Jordan Lapp

http://jordanlapp.com/blog

[crystalwizard]

You do. you use a different section of your brain when you type than when you write as well.

getting up to speed with your typing is probably the best thing.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

Visit my art gallery on art wanted at
http://artwanted.com/crystalwizard

All my books in print:
http://sojourn.omnitech.net

[Mindwing]

I also use the dragon because sometimes I get major carpal tunnel. It took me months to train myself to dictate stories well enough for a first draft. But it is almost impossible to dictate the rewrites .

Mindwing

[richard]

I tend to mix the two: I started in on the story by hand.Figured the computer would make editing so much easier after a whileandso I typed it all on my pc. From then on I never left the house without paper and pen though,I like to go to nice places and write. Or at least have paper and pen handy if I got a new idea.At work I even wrotewhile having lunch,I write these things on my pc whenI get home.Other bits of the story( most by now) I just wrote sitting behind the computer.


So my story grew and matured. Now I hate reading a whole story of the computer screen, so I printed the story out for my first rereading/writing run.Singleside print. Now I always have room for on the left side to edit and write improvements or whatever.This is done by hand.Then I go back to the computer and make all the changes.


Like I said,my speed of typing is average.The best improvement for me indeed seems to take a course in typing. I agree with WD Ward in this.Also because my handwriting is bad beyond helping.


typo.