Novelista

In a previous post , I talked about using Dragon text to speech software.  After using it, I have to update my recommendation. I used the software to transcribe the second half of Secrets of the Sages.  At first, I thought it was great.  Then, it wasn’t so great.  Let me explain. Secrets is epic fantasy, which means we authors tend to use strange names.  I taught Dragon names like Baldur, Colvin, Goscislaw, Alvar, and Hatcher.  Half the time, it would not type those names when I said them.  I found that frustrating.  There was no explanation for why Dragon stopped transcribing.  I resigned myself to typing the ancient tongue and ancient Fairy languages. In general, it messed up a lot.  I would have to talk it into corrections.  Those didn’t go so smoothly either.  The command, “Go to End,” became “Good and.”  I always had to say, “Cap Hope” when I wrote about Berty’s niece, Hope.  But that was because I u...

Regular readers of this blog know that I hand write all my manuscripts before I type them. Typing, for me, is my first edit. Novels have a lot of words that need to be typed. So far, I have published just over a quarter of a million words. After typing the first 30,000 words of Secrets of the Sages, I decided to give up typing novels to try something new. For about the past week, I have been using speech recognition software. I got Dragon Naturally Speaking 12. The regular retails for $99 while the premium version is $199. My consensus, thus far, is good. I use it with my own headset. Not a pricey bit of plastic, but it does exactly what I need it to do. Since my vintage version of Word has gone wonky, I am now using Open Office. After going through the tutorial and reading an excerpt of a novel by Lewis Carroll, I began to dictate my hand-written manuscript. My book was already started in manuscript format—double spaced and first line indent at a half inch. ...