Back in the nano-saddle
I’m still sucking relapse-plankton and coming up for air briefly at random intervals, but my voice has recovered its strength this morning so I plan to dictate nanowords for the first time in 9 days.
Yes, you could say I’m slightly behind on my schedule. By the end of Day 15 (today) I should be at 26k, which means I need to do 15.5k to catch up over the next 12 hours, and I think we all know that ain’t gonna happen. But I’ll do what I can and we’ll see where we are when the dust settles.
The voice strength thing is significant because Dragon Naturally Speaking doesn’t recognise me if I slur my words, which happens when pain has exhausted me for a few days. If it doesn’t recognise you, and you insist on continuing with the dictation anyway, the software starts to retrain itself. Obviously, that isn’t a good thing. It’s a physical obstacle to dictating in the same way damaged hands are an obstacle to typing, and it’s one I never could have foreseen.
But, hey, I’m back in the saddle.
Shelley (aka Soulcreates) said,
November 15, 2008 at 3:53 pm
It is good to see you back in the saddle. Hugs.
howpublishingreallyworks said,
November 15, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I use Dragon, too, and since upgrading from version 8 to version 10 I’ve had fabulous results. I get almost 100% accuracy: it’s wonderful.
I use it with a Sennheiser ME3 headset and a little sound-pod, which gives far better results than using it with an internal soundcard and the headset that came in the box–it can even deal with me when I’m too far down the gin bottle, which has to be good.
You might find your recognition improves if you upgrade your headset (unless you already have, in which case just ignore me!).
gypsyscarlett said,
November 16, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Here to wish you luck with catching up on NaNo. Pace yourself and don’t get discouraged.
You can do it!
Joanna said,
November 16, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Oh God, David, what a bummer. Glad to hear you’re up and about again. A deluge of work has meant that I’m drastically behind on nano too – only at 18,000-odd so a good 8,000 or so words behind
Good luck!
uppington said,
November 16, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Glad to see you’re back – just goes to show that some cliches are accurate, and you can’t keep a good man down. What you need is a full time scribe, sitting by your bedside to take dictation whenever you’re able to speak. If only we were all rich and famous, I would send you one. Hang in there!
David Bridger said,
November 17, 2008 at 9:22 am
Thanks, everyone. You’re all very kind.
Makes me feel a fraud.
uppington said,
November 17, 2008 at 2:43 pm
And why are you feeling fraudulent? My current life lesson is Acceptance with a capital A – so I’m sending some of my day’s supply your way. Whatever is going on with you, it is what IS, it doesn’t change who you are, or what you’re capable of. If life gets in the way of writing in November, there is always December. Don’t give up, and above all don’t start beating up on yourself – sounds like life is doing plenty of that already without any assistance from you.