I don’t recommend this as anything other than a last resort or if you are too scared to sit down and write the thoughts in your head. That’s what happened to me.

I working through a section in my most recent manuscript and I was dealing with a situation that is one of my biggest phobias. As I sat in front of the keyboard trying to write the scene, I was so terrified I kept squirming in the chair, literally (and I do mean literally) worked into a minor frenzy. I couldn’t write it! So I took to my back up option, my smart phone.  Using the dictation feature, I was able pace my office and talk myself through the portion. Maybe I’m a certifiable chicken, and maybe I’m admitting it for everyone to read, but I found a work around.

I don’t recommend anybody dictating a novel length manuscript using their precious Android or Apple, but the beauty of a smart phone is it is always handy. Most of us sleep within reach our device, most of us talk all day long, but how often do you hear about some using their phone as another tool in the writing arsenal.

I’ve tried dictation programs and even own a digital record for just that function. However, I realized something crazy. The voice recognition on my phone seems to work better. Try it for yourself! Here are a couple quick tips to get the most out using you phone for dictation on the go. These are things that worked best for me.

1. Try to Find a Place that’s Quiet
In effect, you are generating a text file from a recording, so the less background the better. Less noise equals a more accurate of your speech and is what you want.

2. Find a Place Away From People
Unless you’re shooting for performance art, you’ll probably better off in a place where people aren’t giving you strange glances or interrupting the flow of dictation. I found bathrooms and parked cars excellent possibilities.

3. Practice Using  the Feature
The more you use it, the more you’ll understanding your optimum speaking volume and speed. You’ll also get a rhythm for how your particular app or software works. For instance, I learned that my particular phone would duplicate all my words if I left too long of a pause).

4. Dictate in Your Text App or in an Email
I started off using a notes app, but switched to doing my dictation this way, because I could readily email it from either option.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to being able to redeem that tiny bit of time you might otherwise have frittered away. 

How committed are you to writing? How committed are you to anything? Our culture has become so wrapped up in instant gratification that the concept of working hard on a long-term writing career has become a foreign concept. Every direction we turn, we are handed a smorgasbord of on-demand options. These can be detrimental to our mental writing health for several reasons.

1. We can’t see the hours invested behind the effort. Because a whole season of a new TV show hits your favorite media streaming service at once, it is easy to ignore or forget the massive hours it took to make that show a reality. The same is true with that manuscript you’ve been slaving over. No one sees the research, writing and polishing that takes place. “You’re still working on that story?” An innocent question can cut deep. Are you mentally prepared to handle it?

2. There are a thousand others things that vie for our precious time, both for the reader and for the writer. Why should a reader spend their time reading my story instead of any number of proven bestselling authors already sitting squarely in the middle of the New York Times Bestsellers list? Or watch the latest blockbuster movie? Or do any other easily accessible option?  Are you prepared to invest the hours it takes to make your work legitimately desirable? Conversely, are you willing to deprive yourself of all those distractions and clear off the calendar to make room for that type of time investment?

3. The road to success is often a hazardous journey. I won’t lie, some of the rejections I have received hurt. None of us particularly like being told we are not good enough (okay, our writing isn’t good enough, but we take it personally). The underlying question is, am I going to let this one person’s opinion stop me? Even if they are right, what am I going to do about it? Do I pick out the kernels of truth and use that to make my next revision or my next effort stronger? Or do I assume the fetal position and give up on everything?

From my spot in the trenches, writing, as in life, appears to be far less about talent and far more about determination and tenacity. I made a commitment to myself that I would write a novel every year for the rest of my life. I intend to keep that commitment.

What about you? Like I asked at the beginning, how committed are you to your writing? Are you ready for the long haul?  If so, don’t ever give up. Put your head down and keep putting one word in front of the other. And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll lift your head up to look around and find yourself sitting squarely in the middle of the New York Times Bestsellers list!

I don’t remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to be a writer, but I can tell you when it wasn’t.

• It wasn’t when I made the New Year’s Resolution to write a complete novel manuscript in 2012 or when I finished it just days before Christmas.
• It wasn’t when I read any of the dozens of books on the craft of writing and all the tedious minutia that is part of the lifestyle we as writers commit to when setting out on this solitary journey.
• It wasn’t when I starting writing e-mail snippets of a middle grade fantasy novel after college. I dutifully sent those attempts over that summer to my girlfriend who was back home in American Samoa. I was pantsing before I knew what pantsing was. That was an unfinished manuscript that has so far managed to stay that way.
• It wasn’t when one of my best friends, Paul, and I decided to co-author a Hardy Boys Casefile and managed to eke out several thousand words of a pretty decent plot (see picture of our mock up). One of us, probably Paul, even went so far as to reach out to the publisher. We received a form rejection of sorts, but it’s still cool to look back and see those attempts.
• It wasn’t when Ms. Garrity had me write and illustrate my largely derivative treasure hunting story (hat tip to Peggy Parish). I wish I still had that little book, laminated pages and all.
• It wasn’t the hundreds of trips to the library only two blocks from my house. I loved that place and I still go back once in a while!
• It wasn’t the countless hours my father read the Sugar Creek Gang books to me and my brother for bedtime stories. Later we graduated to Chronicles of Narnia and others.  I never forgot the magic of snuggling up next to him as he read to us, even when we got so old as to read our own books while he read. Shameful.   

No, none of those were the exact point where I decided to become a writer, but looking back, maybe they all were. Single steps in a journey that has informed my life and focused my passion for ink on a page, or letters on a screen, or words dictated on an app.

Maybe it wasn’t a decision, but rather deciding over a long period of time. Affirming what I loved and following the alluring call of something so tangible and non-tangible, all rolled into one. ​

A mock up of the Hardy Boys book that Paul and I were writing. I still have a
letter from Paramount, the parent company at the time, rejecting our attempt.