Saying Goodbye to 2019 - Erin Zarro

This year was a really rough year for me. I struggled with my health, and then finding time and energy to write, and honestly, I am happy that this year is almost over.

I think the worst part of it was all my health stuff in rapid succession: foot surgery in March to repair my Achilles' tendon and a torn ligament, the long recovery where I was non-weight bearing for almost a month, suffering horrible headaches and scalp pain that I found out was due to a pinched nerve in my neck, the failed root canal scare that turned out to be part of my facial nerve pain disease (trigeminal neuralgia), and finally, abdominal pain that sent me to the ER thinking I was going to die. Spoiler alert: I didn't, and it turned out to be pretty mundane, but it was scary.

With all of this crap going on, plus my freelance work, writing had to be set aside. It hurt, sometimes horribly, as I am the type of writer that writes every day, but I knew it would just add more stress to an already stressful situation. I wrote a grand total of 751 words on Wednesday, and I anticipate that that is probably it for the month. My total wordcount for 2019 is around 53,000 words. Probably the lowest since I got serious about it in 2003. Last year was slightly better at 75,000 words, four hundred of which were written on New Year's Eve to make that goal.

But my life has changed so much from those days. For one, I'm working from home now. And I have been struggling to find a sleep schedule/work schedule that works. I am a night person, so I don't perk up until around eleven or noon. I've tried to start work sooner and more often that not, I'm asleep at my desk in minutes. However, starting work this late requires that I work into the evening, sometimes late at night, to get my work finished. And I'm not really fond of this way, and want to change it, but it's been so overwhelming with everything else. And it doesn't leave much time for writing. Back when I worked a traditional job, I wrote after dinner. That was my routine. I could count on it. Now, I'm usually working after dinner. So clearly something needs to change. I'm not even sure what at this point, just that it has to.

The Delight and Agony of Dictation

Well, friends, it has happened. I have had to start with voice recognition software to write once again.

Recently, I decided to start dictating again for speed. I've heard of people dictating ten times more than me. I'm not looking for a novel a day or anything, but a few thousand extra words a day would be great.

Because I am a slow, slow writer.

In 2003, I had a carpal tunnel syndrome scare. Turns out it was just severe tendonitis. Back then, ergonomics weren't really a thing, so I had no idea how to sit properly, nor did I realize that yes, typing for hours on end might lead to hand and wrist issues. Say it with me: Duh.

Anyway, I bought Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is the best dictation software out there. It cost me $60.00. And I started dictating. I had a bit of trouble with the RAM — Dragon needs a ton of RAM and my computer needed to be upgraded to Windows XP. Damn, that was a long time! I found it to be very awkward because I am used to typing, and speaking everything, including punctuation, was just weird. I even went so far as to pretend to be typing to trick my brain. As time went on, I got better at it, and my wrists got better, too. However, I went back to typing at my first opportunity. But I've had to drastically cut down how much I type per day.

Over the years, I had several more tendonitis flares, requiring me to drag out the software once again and relearn how to speak my novel. Each time I went back to typing. See a pattern here? My last flare was in 2008, where I dictated my entire novel for National Novel Writing Month, a writing challenge that takes place every November. I "wrote" 57,000 words, 7,000 more than the goal of 50,000. But I had a serious problem. The headset that comes with the program gave me migraines.

Since then, I've done two things. I've been keeping the software up to date so I always have the most current version. It has gotten better over time. And now you don't even have to train it anymore! It's like 90-some odd percent accurate upon installation. And I can verify that this is true.

I have also been looking for an alternative to the headset. For awhile, I used the Dragon Dictation app on my iPhone, and it worked beautifully. And then they stopped updating it to be compatible with the iPhone, which totally sucked. Strangely enough, the version for Android still works.

I also looked into a Bluetooth headset, but that was a major problem because they're so expensive but so flimsy.

So I was basically screwed.