Comments on: Notes on writing (or) The Nicholson Baker Tapes

By: Len

Len — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:56:24 +0000

I’m down with Tim’s recommendation — carry a voice recorder (or iPhone) with you everywhere and dictate a chapter whenever the muse strikes.

Does anyone have a Voice invite? Is it possible to play a recording into voice to use their transcription?

By: Len

Len — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:54:01 +0000

google voice has transcription!?! OMG OMG OMG

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:16:12 +0000

This is why it’s good to cultivate lots of different modes of writing. I will write an entire essay inside an email or blog comment window, then cut-and-paste and add footnotes. A student of mine this semester wrote one of hers in a series of Skype chats with a friend. Google Voice’s transcription function opens up all sorts of new possibilities…

Writing is going mobile! Just like painting! Eat it, Michaelangelo!

By: Saheli

Saheli — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:39:38 +0000

This reminds me of something a New Yorker writer told my visiting journalism class: sometimes when he has bad writers block, and it’s really dire (as in, David Remnick has already printed up the little flaps that go on the magazine and say, Inside — —- on Iraq) he will call his wife, and just talk to her about the article, and then she will email him her notes on what he told her, and that’s how the draft gets going. Taking his wife out of that loop doesn’t seem to be an option though. Only she can get the words out of him when things are that stressful.

By: Michael Brewster

Michael Brewster — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:39:41 +0000

I’ve always held that the language center I use to speak, even in an extemporaneous situation like a workshop, is different than when I write. Certainly, my vocabulary is, and the style I’ve developed in writing fiction. I could not dictate a novel.

But it is amazing how many writers do, and going back to James Joyce with his failing eyesight, we have examples of writers relying on a vast variety of externalities to accomplish their goals.

By: Tim Carmody

Tim Carmody — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:40:34 +0000

If I were writing a novel through dictation, I’d dictate into a tape recorder, then use speech-recognition on the playback. Doing it on the screen is good for some things, but it’s too weird for creative writing.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:54:48 +0000

Interesting! I wonder if part of the dictation thing is about not stopping yourself as you go along? I know that if I’m writing, I’ll look back on the words I’ve already written too often instead of pushing forward with the narrative in my head. Definitely worth a try.

By: Len

Len — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:43:36 +0000

I wish the Mac had a killer dictation app. I’d be all over that writing in bed stuff.

By: philwells

philwells — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:02:10 +0000

I speak the words in my head when I read.

By: Tim Carmody

Tim Carmody — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:51:11 +0000

Actually, Baker's condition of lying in bed turns out to be very important. Under normal conditions: dictating to a computer is different from both typing on one or simply speaking one's mind out loud, even if it's to no one. This is for the important if obvious reason that as you speak, you see words appearing on the page. It's not an oral-aural thing anymore OR a visual-mechanical one, but a hybrid - oral-visual. It's neither speech nor writing as we understand it, but something else. Some kind of... secondary literacy phenomenon. :)