Voice Recognition Software and I: Part 3

As promised here is Part 3 of my experiences using voice recognition software (Links to Part 1 and Part 2). At first I thought it was going to be easy, I write therefore I can dictate, right? Wrong. I might be the exception, but making the transition from typing to dictating took longer than I thought.

For one I am not a talker, meaning that I am not overly fond of hearing my own voice the whole time. It took some getting used to, and it was easier when I was alone at home. Once I got more comfortable with that stage, I could continue doing it when my husband was home. Weird I know, especially since I have been married to him for twenty years. But then again human behaviour in unusual situations can be unpredictable.

Contrary to how it might sound, it took me only about three days to overcome that hurdle, so the writing flowed much easier by then.

Then came the scenes with intimacy, and that is not just sex writing. Extreme intimacy can be emotional and I have found that I get so involved with my characters that I cannot dictate these words fluently.

Since I also write erotica and the kind of language that can be associated with that, can be difficult too. It slows down the flow of words where I had to spell words not in the software's dictionary. So I decided to type the words for those kind of scenes. Fortunately, in erotic romance stories there are fewer sex scenes than people think.

The last and most difficult thing that I had to learn was “writing” while talking. I can think and plot and visualise my words while I type. It had been a big hurdle to overcome to do the same while dictating. It is still not an easy thing to do, and the software makes mistakes because of the way that I dictate as a result.

It takes a lot of practice to use voice recognition software and I will need to get back into it from the start, since my preferred writing computer has been out of commission for several weeks now. I have an old notebook that I have been using, and it is perfect for type writing, if you will excuse the pun, but it is not sufficient for the software.

If you decide to try out voice recognition software, Dragon Naturally Speaking or any other, do allow yourself the time to learn to use it properly. Find your groove with dictation by being patient with the computer, it is truly only a dumb machine. Also be patient with yourself and you will not be sorry when the words start flowing by at least double your normal word count targets for the day.

I can type about a thousand words per hour, but with DNS I upped that to 2500 without any additional effort, after I did the training of course :)

I am happy with using Dragon Naturally Speaking and will recommend it to anyone who wishes to write by means of dictation.