Category: Writing Projects

I Started Dictating and It’s Been a MAJOR Game Changer

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Okay guys the hugest thing happened… I started to dictate and it’s rocked my world.

I had always heard that dictating would double or triple your wordcount, but the reason I had never started before now is because I was just dang shy. There’s something really vulnerable about hearing your writing out loud but even worse if you think someone else can hear it. We all know how first drafts are and I don’t even want the possibility of anyone hearing that. I guess even myself.

I actually tried it once before but it just wasn’t right for me at the time. Dictating also takes a different mindset / part of your brain for some reason. And I know that’s true because if I’ve just had a really long writing session and then suddenly somebody wants to have a conversation with me I sound like Frankenstein’s monster. It’s like I forgot how to even make words out loud anymore. So I just put away the idea of dictating and I never tried it again.

BUT THEN a few months ago Daniel had this random project he needed help with. (And by random project I mean he wanted me to mail like 75 postcards to a Mr Beast sweepstakes. Don’t ask.) Anyway, I didn’t want to give up my writing time, but I figured the task was mindless enough that I could try to dictate my novel. So I sat there saying my story out loud as I was just like putting stamps on these postcards.

It ALSO just so happened that I was like home alone, which is pretty rare, but the timing worked out perfect. Both of my older kids go to school now and my youngest has a regular playmate so she was out and about. I was home alone. And that made it so that I was able to dictate my novel. And you know what I found out? They were not kidding, dictating is so much faster than just sitting down and physically writing, because you can go as fast as your brain can. (If you can creatively access that speaking part of your brain. I swear to you speaking and writing with your fingers are different parts of your brain haha)

Anyway, I was able to do like 2,000 words in half an hour and was totally RATTLED by this. I had been keeping track of my daily wordcounts just as a fun competition between myself and dictating blew my personal best out of the water! And I not only absolutely DOMINATED my personal best but did it ***whilst I was doing another chore***. Okay. The idea of that, as a mother, made me so hungry for more of that. The idea that I could be getting other things done while writing was just… the most heavenly presented gifts I could ever receive. So that’s what I started doing and it’s changed EVERYTHING.

And do you want to know what? I’m cleaning my house RIGHT NOW while I’m writing this blog post, in case you were wondering. Yep. I am able to just get stuff done and write and it is GLORIOUS and I LOVE IT. And side note, but do you want to know what else? I am so distracted by the writing it’s like I don’t even feel the drudgery of the chores anymore. No joke. Like all the sudden, I’ve finished an entire chapter and I’ll look around like, “Wow, my room is really clean.” I literally don’t even remember cleaning because I was off on a different planet in whatever book I was crafting at the time. It’s just such a win if you are an author who needs to do other stuff too!

This is how I do it. I got on Amazon and I bought one of those work out arm bands that hold your phone (as if I was a person who actually goes to the gym. Very funny, but that’s what I did). And then I got a microphone. (I’m not affiliated or anything, but this is the one I bought.) It has a c-type plug so if you have an Android it will plug right into your phone. I downloaded Google keyboard because it hears you a little bit better and I just dictate into Keep Notes which automatically syncs to my computer. So that’s it. I just walk around with this headset on and Daniel says that I look like a peloton instructor, but it works so well. I can do dishes with this set up and pretty much any kind of cleaning. I’ve even written while cooking. If I could just get over my own insecurities, I could even genuinely exercise and write while I walk the neighborhood.

On the opposite side of that, one of the most glorious things about dictating in my personal opinion is that you do not even have to be doing anything productive. One time I wasn’t feeling so great and I just dictated from my bed, you guys. I laid in bed, just held my phone up to my face and casually added an entire 2K word chapter to my book. This past NaNoWriMo, I felt like I was cheating, okay. I was like this is the easiest month of NaNo I’ve ever done in my entire life. Is this even kosher?? Should I do more than 50,000 words? It was such an easygoing NaNo, 50K just felt like nothing, dude. I’ve even dictated from the bath. (Try not to imagine that if you read one of my books but haha)

It’s just great and I really recommend it! It does take a little bit of practice, I’ll say. But, personally, I come from a theater background and it’s actually really fun to do the dialogue out loud. You certainly get a hold of your characters a little more when you’re acting them out. I don’t add any formatting as I go. I’ve literally been making these 100,000 word run-on sentences. But I’m not too worried. Thankfully I’m totally sure that AI is going to soon be able to format this stuff for me. And in the mean time, I go into editing and format and clean up as I go.

It’s just a really great way to get a first draft down. I found dictating freeing in a way, because it gave me this permission to just to tell myself the story. I worry so much about trying to make the material really good right off the bat and that fear slows me down significantly. But when you’re dictating, you actually like have no choice haha. You’re saying it out loud so you have to just keep going even if the writing is dumb.

For me, personally, it’s been amazing. But, it probably would not have been as efficient or amazing a few years ago. So if it doesn’t work for you, I wouldn’t be too downtrodden because it might just not be the right timing. At least that’s what happened to me. I had to get to a place where I was okay enough to write a first draft poorly (lol). I don’t think I’m totally there yet. It still sucks to write poorly, but it does help to get those drafts out, so that they can be fixed. Any writing can be cleaned up and shaped just like a sculptor slapping down the clay first and then shaping it and making it into something spectacular.

If you have any questions about anything, please reach out, comment, send me a message… I am such pro dictation now! And wow, my house is a little bit cleaner since I started writing this blog. I’m just enjoying this so much, you guys!

How an Adult Sticker Chart Saved My Productive Life

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I swear by this. This was a huge game changer.

If you follow me on any social media platform you may have noticed that once a month I post a sticker chart/calendar on my stories (fully completed nbd). And if you know me in real everyday life then you’ve already heard me blather on about this method and you can politely disregard this blog post.

But I am not kidding when I say, THIS WORKS SO HARD FOR ME. Maybe it would work so hard for you too. Maybe it wouldn’t. Am I still going to write an entire post about it? You BETCHA BOTTOM DOLLAR LIL ORPHAN ANNIE.

THE STICKER CHART

This is what I do. In order to earn a sticker, I have two goals a day. STRICTLY TWO. (Trust me on this. I have been developing this method for two years. And the first year was me over-trying and failing.)
The two goals are these:

  • Scratch one item off my to-do list
  • Spend 25 minutes cleaning an area of my house.

That doesn’t seem like much, but WHEN I TELL YOU!!! Consistency vs. Baddie superhuman hustler burnout. Consistency is going to win every time. Fact.

Here are the specifics about the two goals…

THE TO-DO LIST

I’ve mentioned it before, but monthly challenges work really well for me for some reason. 30 days is the perfect amount of time before I get tired and bored and want a change. So, personally, I make a new to-do list every single month.

It’s a list of 30-31 tasks (one for each day of the month). Now, the trick of the to-do list is having a good variety of tasks. You want to have both challenging hours-long chores AND chores that you could do in a minute or two. Some days you’re going to have more energy / resources for organizing the entire garage and other days you’re going to be sick in bed and only have enough energy to order your kids school pictures from your phone. You’re going to want BOTH. And the beautiful thing about the to-do list is you can pick and choose what you’re up for that particular day. Which does mean that you’ll put off most of your “yuckiest” tasks until the end of the month. But it weirdly works out because you’re so close to getting a brand new to-do list next month.

Obviously, you’re going to have more than 30 tasks you’ll need to do in a month. I get that. This list is more like things you’ve been ‘meaning to get around to’ or things you’re ‘anticipating you need to get done that month’. For example, when I put together my list I have a good mix of organizing/cleaning tasks, holiday tasks, and writing goals.

I use Google Keep Notes on my phone so I have my list with me everyday.

DAILY 25 MINUTES OF CLEANING

I settled on 25 minutes because that’s what they use for the ‘pomodoro technique’ and it’s supposedly the most optimal time for productivity. (I mean, it’s been working for me!)

So this is a little different than the cleaning tasks on the to-do list. This is reserved for general upkeep of your home. Picking up, vacuuming, wiping off counters Etc. Etc. Doing 25 minutes a day doesn’t feel like it makes a difference at first, but once you keep up with it, it really does keep up your house fairly well!
I have a general schedule in my mind when I do my daily 25. (Mondays- kitchen. Tuesdays – bedrooms. Wednesdays – Bathrooms. Thursdays – upstairs. Fridays – downstairs. Weekends – laundry.) But I’m not strict about that schedule. Sometimes your kids make a disaster of the playroom and you need to focus on that room. So I usually just do my 25 focusing on what room needs the most work that day.
One sad note about this: I tried so hard to make dishes work into this routine, but soon discovered that I had to do dishes separate. I made doing dishes part of our bed time routine and just plan on it every day. It’s the only way I can keep up on them.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART

The real reason this works so well for me is because… all my life… I have just really fudgin’ loved stickers so much. AHAHAHAHAHA

Whenever I explain to someone that I use my wall calendar as an adult sticker chart, they’re like,
“So what do you get at the end of the month if you fill your chart?”
And I’m like, “What do you mean?”
“I mean like what do you reward yourself with?”
“… I reward myself with the stickers.”
“Yeah, I know, but like… do you get a treat at the end? Do you buy yourself something?”
“Yeah! I buy more stickers.”
The cuter the stickers the more determined I am to get work done, because I refuse to have one single blank space on my calendar. So I curate the most darling and interesting stickers I can find.

SO !!!!! If you have skimmed this post and are just now getting to this part PLEASE READ!!!

Whatever you end up doing for motivation, it doesn’t have to be a sticker chart, but it absolutely MUST be something that delights your inner child. Utilize what you LOVED as a child and it will work. If you loved video games, reward yourself with X number of minutes playing your favorite game. If you loved to draw, add to a drawing everyday until it’s completed in a month.

Your ego will resist this. And you’ll have to sit it down and say, “Look Ego, I understand that you think it’s silly for a thirty-four-year-old woman to have a sticker chart. But sometimes this thirty-four-year-old woman needs nine-year-old little girl things to fulfill all the parts of herself.”

You are the parent of your inner child. Be kind. Be patient. Be encouraging.

I Was One of 100 Screenwriters Working on a Single Film

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Literally, just a post of me trying to explain what exactly this is because everyone keeps asking lol.

One unassuming afternoon I got a message from my sister-in-law. “You should totally do this!” and a link to something called the 100 pages movie. Four producers were looking to recruit 100 screenwriters to each write one single page of a full-length movie. I thought that sounded like a really unique and fun idea, and serendipitously it happened to be “Sendtember”. The ONE month where I actually take chances and put my work out into the world. I felt like that was a cue from the universe to give it a shot, so I applied.

I got a follow-up email in the middle of the night that they were interested in my application and wanted to schedule a Zoom meeting to ask me a few more questions. After a bunch of technical difficulties with Zoom (of freaking course) we FINALLY were able to meet and it turned out that they only had one question for me:

“Would you like to be one of the writers for The 100 Pages Movie?”

And I was like, “Yes, I woooooullllld! YEEEEEEssssssss!” That’s exactly how I said it. Here’s video proof:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx_CTetuwJU

Being accepted also meant that I was required to meet them in Nashville so that I could take part in the behind-the-scene docuseries, sign paperwork, meet the other writers, and receive whatever page number I would be working on. So that was a bit hectic, trying to organize a last minute business trip. But also SUPER COOL.

I’ve only ever been to online writing conventions, so being surrounded by a hundred other passionate creatives felt FREAKING INVIGORATING. Sharing all our projects with each other, dropping writerly lingo like “scrivener” and “NaNoWriMo” and “Save the Cat”. We were all so hyped and energetic, (even though most of us admitted that this was too much excitement for us little introverted artists and we were going to pass TF out after the event haha)

The producers had gathered a really diverse team of writers. Some of the writers were professional daytime-authors and some of the writers had very little to no experience with writing. Some of the writers were local, some of the writers were from other countries. The oldest writer was in her late eighties and the youngest writer was 14 years old. But every one I met at the event was just… UNBELIEVABLY nice. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a nicer crowd than the screenwriters working on this project.

“SO HOLD ON. WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS PROJECT? I’M CONFUSED.”

Okay. Here’s how it works.

Every single day a new writer adds a page to the script. No one knows where the story is going, it just develops one page at a time. Each of us have an assigned page number. (I’m 85 BTW, which turned out to be a freaking nightmare. But I’ll save that for another post.) You have one day to finish your page and then you hand it to the next writer. Everyone has access to the entire script UNTIL you’ve completed your page and then you are left in the dark, baby. You do not know how the movie develops after that.

So for example, I wrote page 85. So I read the script every single day (what writers 1-84 decided to add to the movie) and then on day 85, I continued the story from where they left off. 15 writers after me finished the movie.

Does that make any sense? Maybe Marcus Johns explains it better than I do:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzcMzd_vys4

In short (lol), it was a really cool project. I def have a TON more to say about the process and the actual day I wrote. But because most of this project is a secret while they film and promote the movie, I’m going to save those details for another post. Mainly, until I can get a green light from the producers to be able to discuss what the script is actually about.

Overall, what I can say is that I feel really blessed to have been a part of this unique project. I so SO wish I could astral project 10 years ago and visit myself when I was depressed and unfulfilled working AR at a printer company. I would whisper in my ear, “Hey, you know your favorite vine about the guy who thinks his friend’s shower is like ‘a dang spaceship up in here’? … That guy hires you to write a movie for him.”