Nano Questions?

[kelsifer]

Thanks so much for answering my question today! Coincidentally, my story is set in the 20s, and my handle IS a reference to Howl's Moving Castle. It's a portmanteau with my actual name

[JR Handley]

Dan,

I'm coming back into writing after a year of shit so deep I had to buy a new watch. Now I am struggling to get back to the 2,000 (or more) words a day. What advice could you give to help people get back on track? Right now I'm not on the on a trajectory to win NaNo and that just won't do!

JR

[Edryan]

Has anyone here ever written by dictating, and if so, do you have any tips?

I'd like to be able to use some of the time I'm doing chores or walking the dogs to write. I've been working at it for 10-15 minutes a day, hoping to get over the self-conscious feeling of speaking aloud. That part is improving. However, the whole process is just painful. Not only am I a pantser (so I usually only have an idea that I want the story to go in a particular direction), but I'm realizing that when I type, I often get half a sentence down and then go back to add a clause at the beginning. (I've written 8+ books this way, so I don't think that part is going to change any time soon.) Dictation seems to take ten times the mental work of typing the story because I have to form a coherent sentence before I start talking.

Is this a hopeless challenge?

I use dictation every day at work but for some reason I just suck at it for fiction. I have tried many time but end up with a few issues:

1) i write fantasy - people named Dezzulbulus just makes my dictation software reach through the monitor and slap me
2) i am very bad about speaking punctuation except at the end of sentences - it really doesn't matter in my day job as I am not using quotation marks and tend to do short notes (just lots of them) I have tried to get better but it kills my flow when I speak "open quote blah comma blah comma blah comma close quote blah blah period.
3) The above and the general poor diction on my part when I get talking too fast makes editing so time intensive that I am better off writing 1200 words an hour with a keyboard than dictating 3000 and then spending 2 more hours fixing the mess it made.

I wouldn't say it's hopeless, but I certainly can't pull it off!

[Theresa Baumgartner]

Thank you! The episode with Kevin J Anderson from 2016 was helpful -- I'm going to take a step back and try dictating some notes while I'm walking instead of forcing myself to come up with actual sentences. Who knows, maybe someday I'll even turn into a plotter!

On a related note, is there a separate day 13 podcast? It's not showing up in any of the usual places.

[jdsawyer]

Day 13 is now fixed. The feed will probably refresh once today's ep is posted in a few minutes here.

[Theresa Baumgartner]

I see it now. Thank you!

[Theresa Baumgartner]

Lots of good tips, so thank you for that. I definitely second the Toastmasters recommendation for anyone needing to get better at public speaking -- after years of dropping classes that required any sort of class presentations during undergrad, I realized I was going have to present cases to finish vet school so I grabbed a friend and we did Toastmasters for six months. It was enormously helpful, and when I had to teach classes in big auditoriums during my residency, it didn't bother me at all. (But it still feels a little weird to be speaking my book aloud when I'm out in public.)

Anyhow, thanks for addressing my question and I hope I wasn't the only one who got a lot out of the episode!

[Gemma]

This is my third year doing NaNo but I have yet to reach 50,000. I am determined to finish this year and was actually hitting the daily goals, until I fractured my finger one week into NaNo. Typing is now painful, not to mention slow. I was about to give up but you all inspired me to try dictation. It took a few days to adjust but my daily word counts have now doubled and as of tonight, I am not only back on track to finish but have found a better way to write going forward. Thank you, thank you!

[JR Handley]

Question for the NaNo Gang Bang

1) What are some tricks and tips to increase your daily wordcount?

2) How do you decide when you've added enough details to a scene (setting, characters, etc)

3) Thoughts on handling sensitive topics? As an example, my main character is a polygamist, I want to treat his life choices with the respect without upsetting the biases of modern readers. This is a more general question, so take it from any angle that fits your works in progress!
EDIT: I would never let the reader offenses stop me from telling the stories I wanted, but I also don't go out of my way to be a jerk

JR

[JR Handley]

Question:

I write military science fiction and the readers come to me with a base set of understandings about the culture of service and a entry level tactical acumen. Even my Swabbie and Zoomie readers get the gist of the basics. I can get away with fudging some explanations on complex topics because the reader base is already with me. I can tell them PVT Joe Snuffy pied a corner for a sneak and peak without any issues because they know what that tactical maneuver is. However, sometimes books surprise you with how they tackle the cultural zeitgeist and then cross over into the wider world of science fiction. So... how hard do you try to make your story accessible to the uninitiated while servicing your existing audience?

JR

EDIT:
Zoomie is a slang term among the military for the US Air Force or any Air Force really.
Swabbie is a slang term among the military for sailor. In naval tradition, to swab the deck means mopping the deck (floor). So a "swabbie" is someone who mops, ergo a sailor.