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I’ve used a similar solution, stream-of-consciousness typing. You aren’t allowed to stop typing or correct anything you write. Most of it ends up as crap, but at the end I have a better sense of what I’m trying to say.

This is gread advice, Matt. Until now, I write down some valuable quote after such a conversation. Later, I try to recapture the flow of that with this. Will try recording next week :)

Matt,

You could save some time by using MacSpeech. http://nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/products/macintosh.asp

While using it one time neglected to turn off the microphone and ended up with about two paragraphs of a conversation I was having with my girlfriend. It munged some words but I ended up with half of a conversation that was fairly close to what was said.

It’s great for e-mail, documents etc…. Oh, don’t try to program with it. You’ll end up with a hot crimson mess. :-)

Great advice.

I’ve often been driving in my car when I have the clarity to focus on wording of letters/blog entries/etc., and wished I had a dictaphone (or the modern equivalent) to capture the spoken composition for later.

Now so many phones have voice memo capability, carrying around something to record voice is not as much of a hassle as it used to be.

I’ve read about a few authors dictating their work to personal assistants. I wish I could think of one of them right now but my minds drawing a blank. But the point is that it’s more common than we realize to use this particular technique.

I thought that was the standard way of writing a book. Seriously.

shrug

Totally with you here—actually, reading out loud is a really old trick they teach you in creative writing class. My writing improves tenfold when I read aloud before publishing.

Thanks!

Would be great if Campfire had a way to record audio.

Audio chat would be awesome.

Another method that works well with me: get away from the screen and try writing on paper. The tactile quality of writing with pen and ink often helps me unlock words that I couldn’t reach when typing.

WOW !!! Typer’s block IS my problem. It takes so long to get past all the grammar and punctuation. I going to use the recording tip. Thank you so much. :D

Beautiful. I’ve used this trick for years. Gary Halbert, the world famous copywriter, called this process “Can It and Clone It”. It’s an excellent way to write sales copy: sit down (or get on the phone) with a prospect or customer and record yourself at “concert pitch”. Then transcribe that recording. I use this technique for a martial arts newsletter I write every month. Nice post, Matt.

CopyTalk is a great service. Basically turns your phone into a dictation and transcription device. I use it from Europe through SkypeOut. There’s a catch though, it only allows you 4 minutes and then you have to call in again. You can make as many calls as you like. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the great advise.

The amount of time I’ve agonized over typing out an idea that seemed to just flow when you discussed it. I’m going to try it out.

Yes, great advice. For a book, for some people, yes, this will be really helpful. However, I would suggest going even further and recording everything (even when you are not writing a book on it), that is not totally off topic. At work we have started recording all weekly meeting and small sessions. With Audacity and MP3 encoding it takes about 1 MB per minute of recording which is pretty good.

I’ve read about a few authors dictating their work to personal assistants. I wish I could think of one of them right now but my minds drawing a blank.

Dame Barbara Cartland. Wallace Stevens (poems). Stendahl (The Charterhouse of Parma). Dostoyevsky (The Gambler). Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake, to Beckett, who inadvertently included Joyces’ “Come in,” when someone knocked on the door. Joyce, amused, let it ride). Wordsworth (Tintern Abbey).

I carry a digital voice recorder in the car when I’m traveling. Usually, I get bupkes, but occasionally I’m able to snag that crucial idea that makes a scene come alive. For that alone, it’s worth the batteries.

@Tathagata wrote At work we have started recording all weekly meeting and small sessions. With Audacity and MP3 encoding it takes about 1 MB per minute of recording which is pretty good

I would be interested to know what you actually do with those recordings afterwards?

@Mathew First of all there are these small training sessions (half an hour each) that we record for those who cannot attend (our dev/qa teams are located in two different cities, and as usual only about 30-40% of the people make it to the sessions, on an average). We ensure that the speaker creates a small presentation and the talk is recorded so that those who didn’t attend can at least follow offline what happened.

Again as usual we end up having several meetings discussing new products and new features in existing products every week. Due to time, space and other constrains we cannot have everyone in the meetings. As long as these meetings are not something confidential (which they hardly are) we record these and put them up in our knowledge base (intranet) website – where others who couldn’t attend can discuss and give suggestions and feedback. Everyone working on the product has a say in what we do.

A good point. Whenever I write I spend a while talking out loud to myself about what I’m going to say. Perhaps I should have a separate session where I just record that conversation (well, monologue) in one chunk and play it back for some writing material, rather than doing it piecemeal – will give it a shot!

Excellent Point.. hmmm… I have tried writing it down earlier but that didn’t work.

Now I finally have some use of my Cellphone having the recorder functionality.. :)

Excellent idea.

I once worked with a guy who was eloquent in person and on the phone. In a meeting he was silken, vivid, clear. But his emails were rambling hash. I suggested he leave voice mails instead.

I often compose while I walk. The words will sing if I’m in motion. I find it much harder to find the right words just by typing. I need a recording device. (My phone currently serves.)

My boss realized this some years ago and assigned my assistant to make me talk through any writing I am supposed to do. I get a transcript to polish up and my assistant gets her name on the finished product.

Speaking with one person, speaking to an audience, speaking in verse or rhyme, singing, writing. They all use different parts of the brain.

We’re pretty awesome that way. :)

Would be great if Campfire had a way to record audio. Audio chat would be awesome! @DOUG

It’s called a telephone buddy… Use one.

—ryan

http://www.livescribe.com/

Pencasts are impresive. Take notes, capture ideas, sketch concepts… while recording the audio in sync.

Great idea. This helped me get through my writer’s block and finish the article I was working on.

I highly recommend Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10. Often, when drafting legal documents, I hit same kind of typing/writing block, and I find that just talking will get the ideas out, and sometimes they even read better than if I type them after careful composition. The great thing about Dragon NaturallySpeaking is that it works better the more you talk in complete sentences. It actually relies on context to determine the appropriate choice of words. It’s not perfect, sometimes you get some pretty strange words, (like in the old spell check systems), but overall it’s extremely accurate, gets better with use, and at least you know that whatever words you get are spelled right! I use the legal version, which also has additional features for automation of routine tasks, but that’s another story. Check it out. In my view, it’s the way to go. In my business, lots of attorneys still use dictating machines with tapes, which they turn over to their assistants, who then transcribe them and give back the draft, which then has to be modified. This is all well and good, but when you consider the cost and time that a skilled transcriptionist has to spend on that and the delay between input and output, you can quickly see that using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, done right, can offer substantial savings. And no, I do not own any stock in the company.

By the way, I dictated this entirely with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and only had to correct 3 words.