flonnebonne | Entries tagged with writing

I've written 33937 total words so far this year. I made a pledge at Camp NaNoWriMo to write 25,000 words of my novel in April, but HA that didn't work out. And I still...don't actually know how Camp NaNoWriMo works.

Most of April was spent wrestling with Dragon Naturally Speaking, first the technical hurdles and then the mental ones. I might write about the technical hurdles in another post, but the mental hurdles have been just as hard to deal with. I was really depressed one day about my inability to just TALK into the empty air. The problem is that my writing process relies on me re-reading what I've already written.--it's visual. And I wasn't sure I could change a life-time of visual training to become more auditory, considering how badly I'd done at all the listening tests in my long-ago piano lessons, and how I always need textual reinforcement when I learn new words....

And then the next day, I figured out what I needed. A visual crutch. I had already tried a tactile crutch--moving my fingers around as I dictated, as if I were typing--but that wasn't doing much. I'm just too visual/textual, not tactile.

So I got out a notebook and wrote on paper as I dictated aloud, and...it worked! It was incredibly helpful! Even if I was just scribbling squiggles that didn't really look like the words I was saying aloud, it helped a lot. It especially helped me deal with punctuation and indenting and other annoying things quibbly things that you have to dictate. With the paper/pen crutch, dictating is getting easier and maybe eventually maybe I won't need the crutch and I'll be able to do dictation on the go, on a voice recorder, which is the dream. I think it'll be a while though. I've got to train Dragon, and myself, a lot more.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/108969.html

I've installed a version of Dragon on my computer. Its accuracy level is pretty damn high. I'm using a blue Snowball microphone, and I think this is the right choice because it lets me freely kind of move around this I might have to pick up the blue microphone by Sedo that's that's all right I prefer this over wearing a headset because headsets are uncomfortable on my head, since I wear glasses.

It's still pretty difficult to use voice to text technology because it really changes the way you write., However I think it is worth it in the end, and actually the divorce sex technology is kind of about more than just writing. It's also about controlling your computer and telling it to open programs for you search the web, and so on.

I wonder if I will ever get used to saying to my computer selects this and inserts there and correct the spelling, and so on, but I can really see how powerful it could be. I mean it's something that will ultimately save me time, and my fingers and you know I I a little hesitance to try new things but this really looks like coming I can get behind.

It's actually pretty fun a lot more fun then Google voice recognition which are tried as well. I wonder this pod casters might be better at this than writers like me? I suppose that using this technology might make me a better speaker, which would be really helpful for my profession will by professional life.

Anyway, back to writing – Dragon is different from other voice to text technology in that it's is great for moving your cursor around, selecting things, and doing other towards the commands which I haven't even explored yet because I am just starting to use Dragon right now. I'm not sure if other people use Dragon for editing but I think I might try it out a little bit on this document.

Another thing I haven't tried yet is recording my voice when I'm not in front of the computer and sending them voice file to Dragon to interpret. This sounds like it's might help me to you know use my undead time like waiting at the bus or taking a walk more effectively, so you know instead of just a clicking scenery me thinking about my novel. Actually that sounds kind of awful as I go on walks to think that I guess it is not a do-gooder on walks to exercise.

Well I guess my excuse of you know my hands hurting is not one that I can use anymore,; I can write like this,; this is actually somewhat like writing. I just have to picture the words in my head as I'm speaking. No one well scratch that I haven't heard anyone say this technique yet. Delete., But I suppose that a highly visual person like me is probably have to picture the words in her head and maybe that's what I have to do to make my public speaking better to. I have to actually picture what I'm saying allowed? No, that doesn't sound right. Note that using Dragon include if that.

You can see that this writing method is very different and perhaps a bit disorganized for me. I will probably need to go back and edit this; actually, I won't. I am going to leave it the way it is so that it is really clear what I have been defaced ends the process involved. It'll be interesting to look at this in a year or so and see how far come along with this technology.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/107090.html

I bought a Blue Snowball exclamation point next paragraph new berry

I bought a Blue Snowball microphone to help me try out dictation. The version I bought has both cardioid and omnidirectional settings. Cardioid means it only picks up sound from in front of it. This means that you can possibly use it even if there's other noise in the room. Omnidirectional means it picks up sound all around it. This means you can even walk around a bit and talk and it’ll hear you.

I am writing up this DW entry right now using the new microphone + Google Docs voice recognition, and it seems to be working pretty well. I'm walking around as I do it. I have to correct a LOT of mistakes, so I’m going to eventually try out Dragon Naturally Speaking to make this go more smoothly, but for now this is not bad.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/106891.html

Total writing word count for 2017 as of January 8: 7184 words

Breakdown
-2500 words of the draft of a Chihayafuru fic (on paper)
-4633 words of sports anime meta + responses to comments
-151 words below lol

I'm doing pretty well on my 75,000 word goal! I've been on vacation from work, however, so we'll see how I do when things go back to normal.

Working on paper has definitely been helpful, but the thought of typing up my drafts is daunting. I hate typing. I've tried using my iPhone's dictation feature, but it's pretty slow, considering that you have to say "quote" and "end quote" and "next paragraph" an awful lot whenever you're doing dialogue (which I do a lot of). You also have to to back and fix all the mistakes that are inevitably introduced when you use voice-to-text--especially uncommon names, which I also have a lot of -_-

I'm working on making my typing setup better (keyboard tray, wrist rests, using inverted colours more, program to force me to rest...maybe I'll get a mechanical keyboard at home too), but we'll see how it goes.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/103702.html

I've been having a lot of meta thoughts about sports anime lately, thanks to Haikyuu!! and Yuri!!! On Ice (what is it with exclamation points in anime titles nowadays). Also Chihayafuru, which feels like a really underappreciated series grumble grumble.

Anyway, today I want to talk about the idea of "Real Life" in sports anime and manga. Ha ha. I'm going to identify some series that are so focused on sports that they are almost escapist, and then sports series that have a lot of Life in them, and then I'm going to talk about how some sports series let you escape for a while and then inject a dose of Life in them through what I call "Life Intrusion Moments." And then I'm going to relate this to other genres, and to writing in general.

Note: I haven't done enough research to write a real essay here, and I'm going to only cut out the worst spoilers, so yeah, this bit of meta will mainly be for me me me me me. Also, I've never seen some of the really important sports series out there (like most of Eyeshield 21, Hajime no Ippo, and pretty much all of the baseball and soccer ones, yikes), and I haven't seen any series with female stars, so this is going to necessarily be a limited analysis of whatever I feel like and know. Wah.

( Spoilers for Slam Dunk, Haikyuu!!, Chihayafuru, Hikaru no Go, Prince of Tennis (big spoilers for this one), Yuri!!! On Ice, Free!, Kuroko no Basket, Ace of Diamond )

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/103599.html

I have pledged to write 75,000 words (the lightest goal) as part of Get Your Words Out 2017. That's 6,250 words per month, or 205 words per day, not counting work writing.

This is the lightest possible goal in the community. The highest is 500,000! Yee!

I will mainly work on fic, original short stories, and my silly fantasy novel, but maybe I'll do some journaling too. We shall see!

205 words doesn't sound like a lot! I can do that on the bus or something, right???

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/103162.html

Rule of thumb for self: when writing an AU that is in danger of retreading significant canon ground, don't reread canon. You will just end up rehashing the whole thing without inserting enough of your own ideas.

(Lol I used the re- prefix three times there.)

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/95642.html

From ivyblossom.tumblr.com.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/93678.html

This is useful: http://writerswrite.co.za/cheat-sheets-translate-emotions-into-written-body-language

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/89447.html

My goodness there are some mighty ambitious FF6 ROM hacks out there.
http://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/portal.php

In other, slightly related news, I still haven't picked which DOINK! prompt to write. Ahhhhhh procrastination.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/88092.html

Tried rewriting my terrible nano novel as a terrible short story, and the process has been extremely helpful. Now I kind of know where the story is headed and what the point of the story is. Only took me some 70,000+ words, durrr.

Now it's time to rethink some the characters, do some outlining, and rewrite everything I've written, sigh.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/86436.html

From writeworld.tumblr.com:

A) A regular character is a likeable character

B) A character that makes a good first impression is a likeable character

C) A character who grows is a likeable character – we root for them.

D) A flawed character is a likeable character. Perfection is not.

E) A complex character is a likeable character

F) A realistic character is a likeable character

G) A well developed character is a likeable character

H) A relatable character is a likeable character

(there is actually more to this person's post, but I like the tl;dr version)

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/85966.html

How I force myself to write now: I gave my brother $5, and if I don't write an average of 500 words per day this month, he gets to keep the cashola. (Actually, it's only $2 for January, since we started in the middle of the month, but it'll be $5 next month.)

My brother is totally okay with "helping out" in this way. In fact it was his suggestion.

I am enough of a cheapskate that this is actually working.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/85120.html

So once again I am writing a Hikago fic with Mandarin in it. Too bad I don't know Mandarin! Can anyone help translate a few lines for me?

The fic is a crossover with Ender's Game, but I think it's okay if you haven't read that book. The lines I want translated are pretty simple ones and don't require much understanding of the context.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/84131.html

Thank you to everyone who cheered me along and congratulated me for finishing NaNo,yo! It's been so much fun even with the sleep deprivation and stress and carpal tunnel and the itchy rash I developed a few days ago. I am still kind of amazed I didn't quit after day two. It's all thanks to all of YOU and your kind encouragement.

As a reward to myself, I didn't write AT ALL this weekend. (Not a good sign!) Instead I played board/card games, went to a house warming, tutored English for moneys, went to high tea, vacuumed, and cleaned my bathroom. Oh, and found a disgusting buildup of mould on my bedroom windows, because during the month of November I didn't open my curtains at all and my windows apparently let in quite a bit of mould-creating condensation. That is the price of NaNo: window mould.

( More blah blah blah about NaNo )

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/82871.html

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/82607.html

About 40,000 words! Looks like I'm going to make it to 50,000 before the end of the month!

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/82183.html

When I created my Scrivener project, I elected to make a novel without parts, and now I wish I had selected "Novel (with parts)."

Anyone know a way to change my project quickly so it has parts in it? I really don't want to start a new project and copy and paste everything over.

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/81908.html

When you have an ellipses (...) at the end of a sentence, do you usually put four dots?

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/81263.html

"Inspiration is seductive and thrilling, but you can’t depend on it to call you. It doesn’t work that way. The good thing is, inspiration is irrelevant to whether or not you finish your book. The only thing that determines that is your own sense of discipline."

NaNoWriMo pep talk from Malinda Lo

Crossposts: http://flonnebonne.livejournal.com/80947.html

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flonnebonne

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Flonne + Tron Bonne

Laziness Incarnate

Entries tagged with writing

Get Your Words Out - April check-in

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

I had a cat named Snowball

Get Your Words Out - current word count

Sports anime meta

Get Your Words Out

Canon rehashing = No!

Two useful-looking tools to help you edit your writing

Cheat sheets for writing body language

Hacking FF6

Write novel as short story

Note to self about character

500 words a day or I pay

Mandarin help! (Again!)

Post-NaNo haze

I R Winner!

NaNo update

Scrivener help

Ellipses

Annoying but true