It’s an exciting month. There’s No-Shave November, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and for the writers inside of us screaming – it’s the National Novel Writing Month!
The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual event for writers all over the world.
Writers sign up (it’s free) and write a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and 30th.
You’re not allowed to start writing before the challenge, but planning and extensive notes are permitted.
For you to win this challenge, you need to hit at least 1,667 words per day (that’s 69 per hour, 1.2 per minute) until you reach the 50,000-word mark.
The satisfying part? Once you reach the mark, you have a brand-new draft of your novel and the pride of knowing that you rose to the challenge!
That’s right; everybody gets to be a winner.
While hitting the goal words per day looks easy, it’s easier said than done.
Whether it’s your first or nth time to join, we’re here to share with you some tips you can consider when working on a novel and how Scribie’s transcription service can help you.
It’s more than quantity. Focus on quality too.
NaNoWriMo doesn’t have judges to check on your work. Instead, their system would verify if you met the required words.
If you write “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” a thousand times, you can earn yourself a certificate.
However, if you cheat the word count, you just end up cheating yourself, right?
If you are keen to hit the daily word count goal, you might as well prioritize the quality of your work.
Dictation is your friend.
With all the things happening this month, you’d be surprised that hitting the daily goal could be more challenging than it seems.
You’d be fortunate if you can spend some hours working on your novel without interruption.
While this may not be the case for everyone, thankfully, technology has allowed us to work easier.
Dictation allows you to speak out your thoughts, which can be later transcribed for review and editing.
Not keen to try? Here are some of its advantages.
You can improve your speed and volume.
You might be curious; why not just type it instead of dictating?
Researchers found that speech dictation was 3.0x faster than typing in English.
A study shows that the average speech rate for English speakers in the United States is about 150 words per minute.
If you’re inspired, and your creative juices are freely flowing, you might end up talking for more than an hour or so.
Now, that’s a huge chunk of words for your first draft!
You’ll have the ability to multitask.
NaNoWriMo encourages participants to plan and outline their novel before November 1st.
With proper planning or not, you might have a “light-bulb” moment while you’re watering the plants, walking the dog, or cooking.
Through dictation, you would be able to complete a mental task while doing other things.
You can go mobile.
Gone are the days that writers need to write their piece in front of their computer or typewriter.
Spending too much time sitting for an extended period, multiple times a week, will strain your back. Research even says that sitting is the new smoking.
You can battle the sedentary lifestyle if you make use of technology wisely.
Dictation can help you stay active physically since you can go anywhere.
Even a walk to the park or gym can help you boost your health, plus creativity too!
No need to stare at a blank page.
It’s not unusual for writers to experience a “writer’s block” wherein you would feel that you’re ‘stuck.’
With a deadline to beat, it’s not usual to feel a fair amount of pressure.
Through dictation, you can take a step away from a blank computer screen and give yourself a time out to find another source of inspiration to overcome this dreaded writer’s block.
Who knows, a simple change of scenery will bring back that spark of ideas.
Dictate now, get it transcribed later
Keep on writing (or dictating) without inhibition. There’s no need to come up with a perfect piece at this point.
You don’t have to be cautious about using elegant metaphors or how accurate your grammar is.
Your inner critic will help you clean up your work when the party is over. Remember, your goal at this challenge is to come up with a novel with 50,000 words. You can make the necessary edits later.
If you opted to use dictation, what’s the next thing you should do with your audio file?
If you’re on a budget and would like to see a rough draft of your work or word count progress, you can make use of Scribie’s automated transcription.
Just keep in mind that writing drafts and accurate transcription are two different things.
You may have a rough draft, but if your automated transcript comes with too many errors, it could be difficult to decipher the intended meaning.
If you’re looking for more accurate transcription, nothing beats manual transcription since it’s transcribed by actual humans.
Over to You
Several writers were able to publish their books after participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge.
The right technology will allow writers to work on their pieces faster and at a greater volume. In fact, there are several speech to text solutions available in the market.
Scribie’s Speech Recognition Engine has improved significantly, resulting in a higher accuracy rate for manual or automated transcripts. Whether you’d be using your transcripts for business or personal use, we’ve got you covered.
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Upload your audio file now to have it transcribed.
