For at least a decade or two, I have tried on multiple occasions to write my posts using dictation tools. At least 20 years ago, I was doing so while living in El Dorado Hills. This goes back to the earliest days of an application called "Dragon Dictation."A good friend sent me an article today about advances in the technology and asked if I had tried any of them. I thought I would capture some of that here for posterity and as a reflection on the dramatic evolution of such capabilities alongside the angst I, along with other aspiring writers, share over leveraging anything other than our own hands to capture our own thoughts reflecting our own voice.
In the article he sent me, the author conveys a similar sense and sentiment regarding the whole writing process. I enjoyed his article, and it struck a chord when he mentioned some of the applications that I had also tinkered with and abandoned.
I've been using my remarkable 2 e-ink tablet for at least two years now and have become highly habituated to grabbing it at the end of each night to handwrite my nightly journal entries, leaning on its ability to convert my scrawled thoughts to scrambled babble, or "scrabble".
It's certainly not perfect and requires one or two passes through grammar and spell-checking features before posting. Even then, I miss subtle nuances. I have also intentionally used different wording to make a pun or show irony, and that, too, is subject to undesirable correction.
That being said, I am definitely utilizing technology more than before. I use the Reminders app to capture a topic, a humorous quip or even a well-crafted sentence or two as they pop into my head for two seconds before the pressure of the next brain-fart forces them to be expelled, dissipating into thin air. (the literal incarceration of a "Passing Thought").
The other I've tried using is Apple's built-in voice memos app. The more recent releases have added the substantially useful feature of converting to text and doing so quite well. I have used it on multiple occasions with far greater success than before. It worked well, yet the struggle remains one of structure and composition.
When writing by hand, I feel more connected and involved in the act of expression. My thoughts flow naturally. I'm able to think ahead and structure the following sentence as I write the current one in parallel. Attempting to do the same thing while talking requires a dramatically different approach. Writing out loud is very different from simply talking out loud when your spoken words are to be transcribed and published.
I believe it's as substantive a step in the evolution of communication as the introduction of the typewriter was. It's a new skill to master as an old dog. Still, it certainly is a lot easier to generate a first draft and can be done on a morning walk, a drive or any other number of "multitaskable" activities that don't require my rapt attention.
When I consider that even after writing something by hand, I'm spending as much, if not more, time in "post-production" cleanup, reformatting and restructuring as it is, perhaps in the end, I should give dictation another shot.
Thanks for the nudge, Jess. I appreciate that you give me feedback and ideas. This means that almost 50% of my readership actively engages with me. And yes, this was originally dictated using voice memos on the iPhone. Spellchecking followed, but none of the AI tools that change the language to be compelling, succinct, emotive or humorous have or ever will be applied, which I expect is obvious.