April Madness Update

So far I'm actually managing to write every day, just as I vowed for April. On two occasions it's been less than a page, with me just sitting down at the keyboard to pound out a few paragraphs or a snatch of dialogue before bed so I don't break my streak.

Thing is, I feel like that's more worthwhile than it sounds on the surface. It keeps the manuscript at the front of my mind, keeps my focus on what needs to happen in the NEXT few paragraphs or pages. And it reinforces my commitment to myself to be a writer producing new work even without the immediate pressure of a contract and deadlines.

I'm still playing with the Dragon software. This weekend I really need to sit down with the manual and figure out how to train my Dragon, though. I'm getting sick of its persistence in typing "Lassie" and "Klansmen" when the lassie in question is a girl, not a collie, and the clansmen are a good 60-70 years too early and on the wrong side of the ocean to be committing racist atrocities while garbed in white sheets. Oh, and when I worked on a to-do list, it kept typing "right" when I wanted "write" no matter how many times I said "show recognition window" and chose the latter from the options presented.

And don't even get me started on the Dragon's problems with capitalizing dialogue tags when the speech being tagged ends with a question mark or exclamation point.

April Madness

April is going to be a busy month for me. To put it very mildly.

Miss Fraser turns seven next week, and we're having her birthday party Saturday at Chuck E Cheese. After two hours of the noise and crowds there, I'm going to want to come home and sit alone in a quiet room for the rest of the day. But it's what she wanted and she only gets one birthday a year, after all. I ordered her cake today–chocolate, with Littlest Pet Shop decorations.

As regular readers of this blog know, my next book, A Marriage of Inconvenience, releases April 11. So I'm busy with all the things an e-book author does to promote a new release–preparing guest blog posts, making sure my online ads are ready, obsessively monitoring review sites, etc. And on the days those guest blog posts are live, I'll be busy commenting and interacting with readers.

And then there's Easter. I sing in a choir, and this is the busiest time of our year. We have two Palm Sunday services, Maundy Thursday, plus 3 services on Easter starting at 7 AM. Somehow Mr. Fraser and I have to squeeze in the family aspects of Easter, too–getting Miss Fraser's Easter basket ready, planning a festive meal, and so on.

To add to the fun, Mr. Fraser is teaching a college class this quarter on top of his full-time job. Some weeks at least one of us has an evening commitment four workdays out of five. He did this for the first time last year, only then it was even crazier because I'd just sold The Sergeant's Lady and was in the middle of edits, AND we found the house we wanted and were scrambling to buy it before the first-time buyer tax credit went away. But even without that added layer of insanity, we are going to be seeing less of each other, and I'll need to do more of the day-to-day housework and childcare than normal, until mid-June.

Some people might use my April schedule as an excuse to take a break from writing. And if I hadn't spent the last five months battling carpal tunnel syndrome, I might do just that. But I'm just now starting to write regularly again, now that my hands are feeling better and I've got a copy of DragonDictate for when they start to feel sore. (I'm using DragonDictate right now, so if there are any really insane typos or my sentence structure seems a bit less polished, that's why. I'm still learning to speak like I type.)

I've missed writing. I'm behind schedule on my manuscripts compared to where I wanted to be at this point in the year. So I'm going to write in April. I've made a resolution to write every day. I'm not setting myself a word count or page count quota. That's my one concession to how busy my schedule is. But I have to write every day. Even my daughter's birthday. Even Easter. Even on the days Mr. Fraser has class. Some of those days it will probably only be a paragraph or two. But I will write every day.

I won't make this blog boring by posting daily progress updates. But I think I will include a weekly report, maybe on Saturday, maybe it's part of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, just to keep myself honest.

Voice recognition software waxes poetic!

My copy of DragonDictate should arrive today. In the meantime I'm continuing to play with the iPhone app (including dictating this very post). I used it last night to take some notes for the next scene I'm planning for my historical fantasy manuscript. Either it's getting better at understanding me or I'm getting better at speaking to it.

The one mildly annoying thing is that I have characters named Cass and Ben. I might just have to call them Cassandra and Benjamin and then use find and replace to get their nicknames into the final version. You see, the app keeps hearing them as "cats" and "been."

Earlier I had some fun with the app by reading it some famous poems just to see how what it heard compared with what I was actually reading. So for your amusement I present "If" by Rudyard Kipling, as heard by Dragon for the iPhone. (Click on the link for the real words.)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about don't deal them a place
Or being hated don't give way to hating
And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise

If you can dream and not make dreams your master
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just same
If you can bear to hear the Trease you've spoken
Twisted by Navis to make a trap for Falls
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build up with one L tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pigeon toss
And blues and start again your beginning
And never breathe a word about your loss
If you can force your heart and nerve and send you
To serve your turn on after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them hold on

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you but none too much
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With 60 seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it
And which is more you'll be a man my son

That's the best result I've gotten so far with anything non-21st century. Though I'm not sure about this "pigeon toss" business. I might be willing to risk everything on pitch-and-toss, but I ain't touching no pigeon. Just feathered rats, those things are.

Experimenting with voice recognition software

This is an experiment in composing a blog post using Dragon dictation software for the iPhone. I am still having problems with carpal tunnel syndrome and decided it would be better to experiment with dictation software rather than waiting eternally for my hands to heal.

I've ordered DragonDictate for my Mac but in the meantime I'm going to read three opening paragraphs from three books on my shelves just to show what the software can and can't do in the free iPhone form.

I have edited the intro for correctness (e.g. I had change "myself" to "my shelves" in the paragraph above) but will not be editing the paragraphs beyond adding punctuation and capitalization for clarification.

Here is the first, from Have His Carcase, by Dorothy Sayers:

The best remedy for a bruised heart is not as so many people seem to think because upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, and indeed in consequence of that acquittal, Harriet saying found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal, and although board Peter Lindsay with a touching faith and tradition persistent day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.

Not half bad, really. It botched the characters' names (Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey) and missed a few words here and there--e.g. in the first sentence "because" should be "repose," and later on "persistent" should be "persisted"--but it's recognizable.

The second, from Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey:

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a Kacoos child got on the wrong side of the plaintiff by lusting peasant stock and sold into condenser in the short following season, I may say that I am house born and reared in the night court proper for all the good it get me.

Now, that one is a mess. It's supposed to be "cuckoo's child." I don't even know what "Kacoos" IS. Also, plaintiff=blanket, lusting=lusty, condenser=indenture, and short following=shortfallen, just for starters.

The third is from Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold:

Miles returned to consciousness with his eyes still closed. His brain seem to smolder with the confused embers of some fiery dream foremost saving. He was shaken by a fearful conviction that he had been killed again till memory and reason began to place the shredded experience.

Much better. The first and last sentences are perfect, and the only things wrong with the middle one are that it didn't hear that "seem" should be "seemed," and also "foremost" should be "formless" and "saving" should also be an adjective for the dream, only I can't remember which one and don't have the book in front of me anymore.

I'm finding that this software seems to work best if I use my public speaking voice--in other words I try to speak slowly and clearly but without changing my accent or over-pronouncing words. I'm assured that the real version of the software that I get for my computer will learn my accent and can also be taught to use the proper names and specialized vocabulary that tend to show up in my novels. I hope that's the case, because when I tried reading it some of my work, the results were similar to the Jacqueline Carey excerpt. This software does 21st century American English pretty dang well. Throw it a historical voice and a moderately unusual vocabulary and it gets confused in a hurry.

I delayed trying voice recognition software for the longest time because I had it in my head that thinking at a keyboard and thinking while talking are two different things. I realized, however, that I was doing something I warn other writers not to do--being a diva and saying I could only write when all the conditions were just so. Until my hands heal I simply must train myself to write with my voice in the same way I write with my fingers on the keyboard. I don't want to delay writing any longer.