Silver Wordsmith: An author's journey |
![]() I’ve had a recent infatuation with voice memos to aid my writing process. I’m a firm believer that a writer’s experience is not measured strictly in the number of words they write. Any amount of our day may be spent consuming other content, whether that be media, news, or simply living, which would then be absorbed into our creative process. For this, boredom is a writer’s great friend, but how many of you had a good idea for a sentence, a scene or a bit of dialogue, and the next time you’re on the computer, it’s gone? It’s not bad enough that you’ve missed out on a potentially good idea, but remembering that there had been an idea in the first place is what really hurts. In order to try to avoid this problem, I carry around a little black Moleskine notebook wherever I go. I’ve accumulated a whole mass of these which I’m sure will be valuable collector’s items when I inevitably (delusions of grandeur incoming) become a world-famous celebrity author who donates mementos of his career to charity auctions. I still stand by my little books, but recently I’ve found that voice memos are also an excellent option. The biggest challenge in using memos is having to listen to the sound of your own voice, which probably for some people will be a show-stopper and honestly, I don’t blame you. That guy sounds effing weird. However, once I got over this particular hurdle and accepted that I don’t have a career in radio (or in podcasts, to use a more contemporary equivalent), voice memos have quickly become a staple of my writing process. The Equipment Many years ago I used to own a handheld dictation machine. I came into possession of such an item to try to deal with a bullying problem I experienced when I first arrived in Canada, which is a long story in and of itself but suffice it to say, having it in my pocket only worsened my bullying. In the years that followed, I occasionally dusted it off and tried to use it for my writing, but having to rewind the tape back and forth, and the aforementioned hang-up about hearing my own voice which I didn’t quite get over until I stopped giving a shit sometime in my thirties, it never caught on. Now we’re living in an age far removed from my quaint magnetic tape dictation device. I don’t know about Android phones, but my iPhone comes with a handy Voice Memos app. It doesn’t do much, but it gets the job done. Scrolling through the recording is easy, as is recording over parts you’ve already recorded. I wish it also came with the option of slowed-down replay, and I’m sure there’s other apps out there that can do just that, so I’m open to suggestions. The Process The When Best part of using voice memos is that so many of your daily activities can be co-opted into the service of your writing. A common time for me to do this is while I’m washing the dishes in the evening – not exactly the most stimulating task, so my brain often goes into creative mode. Having a phone nearby to record thoughts makes sure that creative churning doesn’t go to waste. A car is another place where the mind often wonders. Once I get to my destination, I spend a minute or two dictating everything I thought of on my way there before getting out of the car, and boom, writing done during a time that would otherwise have nothing to do with it. Normally, when I go on my morning runs, I listen to audiobooks, but I imagine someone else might find it helpful to run these notes during exercise too. The limits here are convenience of accessing a phone and your imagination, so make the best of it. The How I found that there’s two ways of using voice dictation to assist later writing: actual sentences and broad strokes. Creating actual sentences is pretty self-explanatory – the writing is developed in my head, sometimes going through several iterations or part-sentences before it fully forms, and once I have the actual sentence, I record it with the voice memo, and move on to the next sentence. Broad strokes, by contrast, doesn’t contain any usable writing. It sets the motions of the scene, the gist of what has to be said, but otherwise the actual writing process would need to occur at a later time. Of course, what ends up happening is a bit of a mix. Sometimes a sentence doesn’t quite fall into place while the next one is bursting to come out, so I dictate a placeholder note. And sometimes when I intend to do a broader outline, a sentence just comes to me so I dictate it verbatim to not waste that little spark of creativity. The Transcription Depending on which method you use above, the transcription process is going to look different. With actual sentences, your role is pretty much just type out what you said, maybe editing here and there if you feel that with the benefit of hindsight that the writing could be better. This is perfect for those times when your muse is snoozing – might as well use your writing time productively without worrying what’s coming out onto the page. I’m a fairly decent typist, though I can’t keep up with my spoken speech – I tend to slow down my dictation if I have the opportunity, but sometimes I want to get it out fast and, in any case, I can never slow myself down enough. For a broad strokes outline, the writing process itself will necessarily be a bit more involved – with creative writing being built on top of what was dictated earlier. In this case, speed of dictation matters less. Usually I play a prompt in its entirety and then set down to fleshing out the writing. All-in-all, this method allows me to maximize the time I spend on writing activities and use my day more efficiently, especially since between a full-time day job and kids, those writing moments are precious and few. Having extolled the virtues of voice memos, they will never fully replace my precious little black notebooks. Sometimes, you’re just not in a spot to whip out a phone and start talking into it. I may have less hang-ups about hearing my own voice but no one’s going to be listening to me dictate my creative writing on a busy bus, especially when it’s dialogue and it will look like I’m either trying to cover up that I’m talking to myself, or having a super weird conversation on the phone. Pulling a small notebook out of your pocket is far more discreet, even if I’ve been asked multiple times why I’m writing in my passport. Also, writing in a notebook is far more user-friendly when you’ve got a random assortment of sentences and ideas that just need to be put down, rather than a single block of writing. These would be far easier to navigate in written form than in voice memos, and it also makes it easier to manage several projects at the same time. As I was writing this entry, I was met with a cautionary tale that I feel obligated to share – I sat down to transcribe a four-minute voice memo, and discovered that it had somehow become corrupted, and all its content was erased. That was about an evening’s chores worth of ideas blasted out of existence. I managed to scrape out of my memory the gist of what I wanted to lay down, but not only was this an unnecessary double effort and therefore waste of time, but I know there were a few choice sentences there that were lost forever. So I stand by everything I said above, but technology is technology and is often unreliable in the worst ways. Again, if there’s perhaps a more reliable voice memo app out there, I’m open to your suggestions.
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Michael SerebriakovMichael is a husband, father of three, lawyer, writer, and looking for that first big leap into publishing. All opinions are author's own. StoriesUrsa Major Categories
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