Jan 28 2008
Writing Freehand
Last week I decided to step away from the computer and write Mija freehand. I thought that the change might give me a different perspective. I rarely type. I usually use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. This method works for me because I’m able to close my eyes and just talk. The pictures in my mind’s eye are vivid. The scenes play in my mind. The characters come to life. And when I want to backtrack, I’m able to “rewind” mentally. It’s a different writing method that most, but this is one of the reasons I believe my writing is authentic.
Writing freehand didn’t work for me because I censored myself more than I normally do. Also, I never read what I write because I want to wait for the editing process. With the freehand method I had to reread everything so that Dragon could type the scenes. As a result, I edited some.
But there was something I liked about having the pencil in my hand and scribbling on a brand new notebook. I like that feeling enough to give freehand another try.
Word count for the week: 4496
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First off, congrats on 40%!! That’s quite a long ways completed!
Anyhow… while writing with a pen is great, it frustrates me a lot because I write so much slower than I think and I’m very used to a flow of typing where I can get my ideas on the screen much faster. That and a pen makes my hand cramp after 10 min.
If I have to write by hand, I write with a pencil. I don’t hold pens properly, so they break and it hurts my hand. All round it’s too slow for me. Plus I tend to end up drawing instead as well.
I can type at the speed I talk, so it’s the best method for getting everything down.
Like Aaron said, pen to paper does frustrate, but at the same time, there is something (I think) lost in not at least occassionally doing so. It seems more meaningful, somehow, to see the story unfold on paper in one’s own handwriting, even if it ultimately will no doubt be translated into another .doc file. I don’t know. I look back at the journals I kept from many years ago, lots of notebooks, and can’t imagine that they would be as meaningful to me now if they had been typed and saved to the My Documents folder on my desktop. Of course, that said, I haven’t written a word by hand in a coon’s age, so never mind.
Oh yeah, and that Dragon thing you mentioned???? I would LOVE that. Maybe I’m just slow, but I hadn’t heard of it. I want me some of that! Thanks for pointing it out! Very excited now.
Doug, a famous writer - don’t remember who - said that s/he likes to write freehand because on the computer it’s easy to erase sentences. Even good ones because you can’t use them at the moment. With freehand, the sentences are always there because writers most likely will simply put a line through the sentence, not erase it completely.
Dragon is the best. All I do is talk and that’s it. Dragon does the typing. I also bought a recorder that I can talk into, hook it up to the computer, and Dragon will type what I said. This means I can write my novel on the go. It’s fabulous!
After re-reading this post, I really like your idea of ‘writing’ your books via speech and I think that can greatly help the amount of words you get out in each session.
Unfortunately Dragon is Windows only. I was down about this but some awesome google searching got me to a brand new product called Dictate that licensed the Dragon engine and is built specifically for the Mac and OsX environment. It comes out next month and I think I’m going to pick it up. I’m pretty excited about this and hope I can take advantage of this cool product!
I started using Dragon because my neck constantly kinks due to all the writing I do. Dragon is great but you have to train it to your voice. Most people get frustrated and give up.
Unless you are a really slow typist, Dragon won’t help much in terms of speed typing.
I’m glad Aaron found a Mac compatible knock-off! I agree, you’ve opened our eyes to the possibility of writing via speech. I’m quite certain that there would be much re-editing, but still, what a fantastic option. Might not be for everyone, but I think it would suit my style, too. Thanks auria for mentioning it.
You’d be suprised on the amount of editing you won’t have to do. Once Dragon is trained, your good.
I write for a living so I trained that puppy real quick.