#304 - Saved By The Dic

The day started with the alarm waking me up at seven AM.

Seven AM comes early when you only went to bed six hours ago. I was a bit dazed and confused and only managed to sit upright and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. I sat in that position for at least five minutes before I could will myself to my feet.

I stumbled in the darkness into the bathroom and began the morning rituals. I can’t say I was moved like a man that needed to catch a train, but more like a man who is in the last round of a boxing match and not doing very well. There was a lot of groaning and grunting involved.

I managed to get dressed and out the door in decent enough time, but I forgot I need to move Robyn’s car out of the way before I could get out of the driveway. A small inconvenience for sure, but sometimes that is the difference between catching the train and missing it.

The drive there was fine until I had to turn onto the street where the station is. Construction had a lane closed for both directions and the lane to turn was a backed up as I’d ever seen it. I opted to drive past the turn and make a U-turn three or four hundred feet down the road. I was back to the light and on my way in short order. No telling how telling how long I would have been waiting there at that intersection if I’d been a good boy and followed the rules.

As it was, I found a decent parking spot not too far from the platform. Grabbing my bag from the backseat, I walked leisurely towards the entrance. Judging by the number of people standing on the platform a train was imminent.

And sure enough, I could hear it making its approach.

I didn’t quicken my pace, resolved to accept whatever fate handed me, I was going to make the next train or I was not. As I approached one of the billboards, I saw that the next train was fifteen to twenty minutes away after this one.

The train had already stopped and was loading passengers. I scanned my card and walked down the stairs not rushing. I thought I’d walk to the platform and if I made it, great. It was worth a try and so I made the attempt.

I managed to jump onto the train just as the doors were closing. I made it and saved myself the hassle of waiting around for another train without any undue exertion. I had to walk through three cars to find a seat, but eventually one appeared and sat with my bag on my lap and closed my eyes. I should have been writing, but I was in no shape to craft words into sentences.

By the time the train arrived at the station I was feeling a little more energetic. I exited the station and remembered that a co-worker had mention a different way rto walk to work had become available now that construction was completed at this end of the station. The pathway ran through the CIBC building and exited on the Esplanade.

The Esplanade is a nice area of Toronto with wide sidewalks and plenty of shade trees. There are all kinds of pubs and restaurants to explore as well. The big draw for me was the wide shaded sidewalks, the quieter atmosphere and an almost complete lack of traffic. There was nice wind blowing and the sun was shining. I couldn’t have aske for a better morning. My plan was to get a breakfast sandwich at Au Pain Dore and sit out on the patio to eat and write for half an hour. But my decision to walk a new way had me a bit turned around and I missed the turn that would take me to the café.

Instead, I stopped at the Rabba Fine Foods and picked up two boiled eggs and a fruit cup for breakfast. I went straight to the studio from there and ate my food in the kitchen with a substandard studio cortado. It was nice just to take the time to eat and not rush into the workday.

I tidyied up my mess and moved back to my desk to login. A co-worker arrived and handed out muffins. Who was I to refuse such a kind offer. Mine was carrot, I think.

My desire to work was as low as it has ever been. I struggled to find the motivation to get anything done. I think it’s fair to say that I am feeling burnt out. Vacation cannot come soon enough.

I finally opened up a revision file and started working on it. Not long after my supervisor arrived and we all chatted about life and work before settling down to the task at hand.

At noon, we had a viewing of two episodes of Final Space, one from the first season and one from the second season. It was great to see some familiar faces in the screening room to enjoy the fruits of our hard work together. I was under the impression that there was going to be pizza served for lunch, but apparently I misunderstood.

For me that meant I went without a lunch. Not that I couldn’t stand to miss a meal. But since I wasn’t feeling very energetic to begin with, it only served to tire me out more. One of the jokes in the series is with the main character’s obsession with chocolate chip cookies. The company bought us four large packages of Costco cookies to share. I guess I had a cookie for lunch.

After the showing we did a little trivia contest to win some swag. I managed to walk away with a Final Space t-shirt, while my supervisor received the grahic novel of the shows final arc as well as a tee shirt of her own. I think we all waled away with a little something.

It was back to work after that. I managed to take multiple breaks, to the point where I was expecting my supervisor to ask me to get some work done. I just wasn’t feeling great and felt I needed more breaks than usual. The lack of sleep and the massive word quotas, not to mention the stress is likely the cause of all that.

I managed to soldier through and finished the revision enough to give it a quick spit and polish tomorrow when I can look at it with fresh eyes.

Five o’clock couldn’t come fast enough and I nearly bolted out of the door. Never have I been so excited to leave the studio. I walked down the Esplanade on the way back to the station so I could get the lay of the land for tomorrow. The walk there was pleasant and much nicer than the old busy route I would normally take. I arrived at the station and bolted up the stairs as a my train was just about to leave. Once I again I stepped onto the car and the doors shut behind me.

And just as I did in the morning, I had to walk a few cars down to get a seat which I eventually did. I was one that would allow me to write on the journey, and I sorely needed the extra words to soften the blow to this evening’s word count.

I managed to get about thirteen hundred words written by the time my stop was called.

The turn to go home out of the station was backed up more than I’ve ever seen it. I saw that my gas tank was near empty. That meant I could make the opposite turn to go to the gas station. Sometimes things just fall into place. So that’s what I did, I turned right and made my way to the Esso. It sure is getting expensive to fill the car up these days, but I needed to get to work tomorrow and I didn’t think I’d even make it home with what was left in the tank.

Once home, Robyn had laid out our supper of sausages and roasted vegetables. I was feeling a bit hungry after skipping lunch. It was a real treat to have a meal ready and waiting for me. I was more out of gas than my car had been just a few minutes ago.

Having a proper meal gave me a little more energy but not enough to accept Robyn’s invitation to go for a walk. The only walking I was doing tonight was up to my bed to get horizontal for a while. Robyn joined me and we watched an episode of The Daily Show followed by Seth Meyers. Seth did one of my favourite segments where he roasts his writers by sharing with the audience their worst jokes and then showing a picture of their faces.

It is always hilarious and you get to love and boo some of the writers. Tom Holland was the big guest, and he did an okay interview. Always good to start of the evening with a bit of lighthearted humor.

I’ve been completely gassed all day. The pressure isn’t going to let up until about Monday morning when my assignment gets handed in and I can relax for a beat. I was happy to get some writing in today on the way home, but tomorrow I need to hit all three writing opportunities. One the way in, at lunch, and on the way home. With any luck I’ll get 2500 words out of the 5800 for the day. That will be a big help and let me get a decent night’s rest going into Friday.

Robyn wanted to go see the new Spider Man on Friday at the theater, but it’s the end of the month and that’s means I’ll be writing like a mad man all the way to the deadline to meet my word challenge quota.

Which is a shame because I would have really liked to start the vacation with a movie I wanted to see and to get to see it with my favourite human would have made it all the better.

Sounds like the kiddos are too broke to pay for the gas needed to drive to the cottage. The massive amount of Amazon packages appearing on our doorstep could be one reason they’re feeling the pinch. I honestly never thought they’d go for it. They are cute, but also notoriously cheap when it comes to spending their money instead of ours. When we are paying, money is no object.

I was hoping the promise of being able to listen to their own music might be enough to get them to take a second car. Alas, this means I won’t be able to bring as many items to the cottage for myself. And it the car will be packed to the gills as well. But I guess I am too cheap to pay for the extra gas as well. In our defense, we did foot the bill for the cottage rental and all the food.

Case in point, kiddo #2 just came into to steal some of Robyn’s hair mousse. He was routing around her bathroom drawers like he was on a shopping spree. We have been slowly making them buy their own specialty items, like deodorant and their favourite shampoo. We only supply the cheap dollar store brand for free. So far, that little ploy has been working, but we still have a long way to go. Selling the house and moving into a one bedroom apartment would probably be easier.

Kiddo #1 was in here earlier trying to get us to help her draw Pokémon characters onto shirts. The both of us, after spending the day doing art, would rather poke our eyeballs out. The little buggers are always campaigning to get us to do their dirty work for them. It never ends.

I won’t be putting the cargo carrier on the roof of the car tonight. I came home too tired and needed a bit of a rest before I started writing, otherwise I wasn’t going to make it through the night. I’m up early again tomorrow to go to the studio.

We got an update on kiddo #1’s date from last night. Apparently, they went bowling as they thought it would be a cheap fun date. Just to bowl and rent the crappy shoes cost them over eighty dollars Canadian. Everything is so expensive these days. Soon we won’t be able to afford to go out for fun anymore. We’ll be doing bread and water picnics on our own front lawn at this rate.

It could solve the pigeon problem in the big city if groceries stay high as well. And let’s be honest, have you ever seen the prices for groceries go down? Don’t think I have unless you count the odd sale. I haven’t cooked a steak in ages. A couple of summers ago I was making steaks at least once per week. Now I am eyeing pork as a more affordable alternative. Pork has great flavour, so it’s not really that much of a downgrade. Probably good for the pig farmers too.

We were discussing how well Final Space held up over the years. It looked so cool compared to the kiddie show we are working on at the moment. I forgot how much effort we put into each scene and how dramatic the show was. There were so many big moments that the best word to describe it is cinematic. The music, the effects, the animation, the expression of emotions and the artistry was all on display for us and a reminder of what this studio was capable of when given the chance. I’m not sure if we’ll ever get a show of that quality and for that age range again. Most of the animation created in Canada is geared towards children. Very few adult or near-adult shows ever get made, at least not in animation.

It was good to be reminded of what we’d accomplished. Every scene held days of memories for me. Lunches with friends. Meetings to figure out how we were going to do this or that. Long hours running two paint teams. One in Australia and the Toronto team. We had some fun excursions to get massive cookies. Something our producer Leslie would make us do when our spirits were getting crushed by the impossibility of our task.

I made some good friends on that show. I worked with some of the best in the business and learned so much. And at the time, my effect on the company was larger and more important than it is today. Certainly, I feel that my importance is less no than when Final Space was a going concern. I miss some of that, but not all of it.

I saw a funny photo today of Trump walking in the rain, an umbrella held over his head to protect him. Melania walked beside him getting rained on. The caption read: The only way Trump can get Melania wet.

I know it’s juvenile, but it made me laugh out loud.

Most jokes that make Trump look bad make me laugh if I am being honest. I never said I was a good person.

I have friend visiting the area from Ottawa this weekend. It’s shame that I won’t be able to hoist a frosty glass with him this weekend. But vacationing has to take precedence. Sounds like the boys are getting together at one of our friend’s houses and then walking over to a bar where an old schoolmate’s band is playing. I enjoy the banter and catching up at the house part, but as soon as the evening shifts to the noisy bar, you lose me.

Hopefully, they get together and have a great time.

I do miss the day when we were younger, and we would all gather at the Kilt & Klover Pub in Old Port Dalhousie. We drank good beers and for a time at well for very little. At one point, every Tuesday you could get a dozen mussels cooked in a creamy garlic white wine sauce for two dollars and fifty cents. We would sometimes get more than one bowl.

There was point where the entire exterior porch of the pub was filled with our friends. It was a place you could go and there would always be someone there that you knew. And then there was some great music played by local musicians. A lot of Irish drinks songs got played and some east coast sea chanties as befits an Irish Scottish Pub in Canada.

Many nights we sang along with lone guitarist and singer Honest Frankie. And Frankie would frequent the pub even on the days he wasn’t scheduled to play. But there were others too and Frankie encourage anyone who was brave enough to join him, and many did. Some learned new instruments like mandolins. One fellow earning the moniker, Mandolin Mike. The food was always good, and the waitresses knew us well enough to bring our orders before we’d even asked for them. They were good times. Magical times.

I’ve yet to find anything quite like it where I live now.

I’m not sure anything could live up to the memory.

Sounds like the cyclosporiasis outbreak sweeping through the United States has caused the Canadian government to issue a health warning to anyone thinking of travelling south of the border. It warns that it could cause diarrhea for up to six weeks.

Six weeks of disaster pants!

Think I’ll pass on the trip to Disneyland thanks.

I keep having a reoccurring dream that I have my own solar boat and am living off the coast of Spain rent free, just like that YouTuber I watch. Imagine only have to pay for your internet and food. You can supplement your meals with fresh caught fish and do whatever you want for the rest of the day. Because going to a new location doesn’t use any fuel and the batteries recharge for free from the sun, you can base your excursions on desire instead of resources.

I think I would want some way to make potable water from the sea water around me just in case. I remember seeing these inflatable balls that you fill with sea water and the sun heats it up and causes it to condense and drip down to a lower chamber. It wouldn’t produce vast quantities but if you had a string of them, it could supplement your water needs quite nicely.

Of course, this YouTuber and his girlfriend are young and aren’t think about needing health care at a moment’s notice or having scheduled sessions with a therapist or specialist. Things that can happen more and more as you get older and things stop working like they used to.

Robyn is diabetic, so being near medical services is something we would need to factor in. Harder to do when you are sailing from country to country. I’m not sure Robyn would be done using a sea toilet either. I mean they aren’t that bad to use but given the choice she’d take your standard plumping over anything. She doesn’t even like to go camping.

I know it’s more of a what-if fantasy for me, but I like to imagine what it would be like to be free of the rat race. To do what you wanted most days instead of what was expected by others. Not that my life is terrible or anything, but I am definitely feeling burnt out from the word challenge, the mentorship and the daily grind of working for living.

There are other ways to get the freedom this YouTuber has carved out for himself, but the way he did it, I think most young people could easily emulate his formula and find success.

It’s just past ten thirty and I have moved myself and my laptop downstairs so that I won’t disturb me sleeping bride. Turns out kiddo #1 is down here too, using the kitchen table as her production line to make shirts for her kids at camp. Her plan is to hand draw and paint the shirts herself. She told me they are due for tomorrow. I don’t think she has even finished one yet.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I would scold her, but I am in no position to lecture anyone about procrastination. Not by a long shot. I need to get my own house in order before I start any of that shit.

It is odd having another person down here at this time of night. I’ve had it to myself for that last week and kind of got used to the quiet and setting the lighting to a level that suits me. Can’t do that when someone is doing an art project in the kitchen. I can move spots if I find she’s distracting me. Afterall, Kiddo #1 is not known for her mastery of volume levels or stealth.

I’ve been using the power saving settings on my laptop to extend the battery usage when I am working downstairs, but lately I have found it lags when I switch from a Google Sheet, which I use to track my word count, to my text editor. I use Microsoft Word to do the majority of my writing. I can’t tell if it’s a Chrome problem or a Word issue that is causing all the delays.

I’ve shut the economy-mode off for now. So far, the typing speed has improved with it off. It’s a real pain to have to wait every time you switch programs.

It pained me to do it. Time is of the essence, but I restarted my laptop in case it needed some update or other that was affecting the programs I use. I also went into the Chrome setting and turned of it’s power saving setting to only activate when the battery gets below twenty percent.

And after some quick testing, that seems to have done the trick. And wow, is that so much better. What difference in the user experience. This should make things much easier going forward. It comes at the cost of some battery life but so be it. I’d rather need a charger than be so frustrated that I don’t want to use the machine.

I just crossed the eleven o’clock mark and I still have two thousand words to write, which puts me at finishing around one AM. Not a terrible time, but I was hoping for midnight, but I don’t think I can even type that fast even if I wanted to. Should see about using the dictation method for tomorrows blog. I can carry my voice recorder around and a let it translate the audio to text while I work for the day.

Okay, I just ran downstairs to grab my Sony voice recorder so I could use it tomorrow as a test. Not sure where I’ll be able to use it and not look like an idiot, but you never know I might get a minute to myself. Not likely, but it won’t cost me much to carry it around.

My laptop had the software on board to translate the audio into text which I ca run in the background. I’ve tried the translation in the past and it worked really well. I had meant to spend more time training myself to use it, but like most things it got relegated to the When I Have Time pile. It is a force multiplier for getting more words written in a short period of time.

I think I’ll bring it with me to the cottage and add little snip-its, so by the end of the day I can fulfill my word count quota and blog streak with minimal effort. It would be good to do as an experiment anyway.

Okay so, I have 1800 words left and it’s eleven fifteen. I am going to go out to my car and in it and see how many words I can get in half and hour.

Wish me luck.

Okay so now sitting in my car in the passenger seat. I’ve got my laptop open and the microphone is recording everything I say and directly converting it to text as I talk. It almost looks like magic to see the words appearing on the screen so much faster than I could ever possibly type myself.

I do wonder if anyone would notice the difference in quality of typing versus dictation. If you can notice anything different, please leave a comment at the bottom of this blog.

It’s actually quite peaceful sitting out in the car; the noise is very dampened. It is quite peaceful and I can only hear the faintest whisper of cars driving on the street behind me. I can imagine if my wife looked out the window right now and saw me sitting in the car talking to myself, she might have questions. Then again, she knows what kind of person I am and might not be surprised.

One thing that’s very interesting about talking instead of typing is that I often forget to put in the punctuation. This software allows you to talk punctuation but it does sound a little funny saying it out loud.

The software I’m using is called Dragon. It is used for people with disabilities, doctors and hospitals, or for people like me just want to write faster. I do have to say that the software has become really sophisticated over the last few decades. Its ability to understand me, and to learn by listening to my voice so that he gets more and more accurate is very impressive.

I have dabbled with this software before when I was writing my novella. I stop doing it because I felt self-conscious speaking out loud and worried about being overheard by family members. I’m not sure why that is, but it did deter me from using the software even though I was getting good results.

Sound travels through our house like it’s made out of paper. The air vents allow voices and television shows to sound like they’re happening in the same room. So you can imagine what I wouldn’t want to use voice systems in a very quiet house in the middle of the night. Although, talking right now in this car and that can only be because I know nobody in the house could hear what I’m saying.

If this test goes well, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t than I definitely need to use this more often to achieve results. There are too many times where I’m too exhausted to grab my laptop and type things out, to think about what to say.

The time when I use the software to write my novella, I went back and read through the story, and I couldn’t tell where I had used the software and where I had to typed it by hand. I also asked my friend John, if he could read the story and point out where I had used voice to text. He also wasn’t able to detect any differences.

So if the two of us couldn’t figure it out, that I doubt anyone else would either. I do wonder if I have bad habits when speaking versus typing. I know for sure I have bad habits when typing. I think the entire time I’ve been talking the software only missed about four or five words which were easy to correct with a laptop open in front of me. This allows me to do corrections on the fly.

So that will burst of text from voice got me about 700 words. It is not unusual for me to type 500 to 700 words in half an hour. That doesn’t seem like much of an improvement but I did have to set myself up outside in the car, launch the software and get myself settled.

So now that I test from 1130 to 12 AM and see if I can get a thousand words. I am finding my throat is getting a little raspy because I’m not used to talking for this long ever. And what you might call a man of few words. Although my wife would probably disagree with that statement.

I’ve only done half an hour of this so far but I feel like it’s starting to feel more natural and I’m feeling a more warmed up.

One downside doing dictation on the laptop while running on battery the amount of energy it uses. The processors need a lot more juice when translating voice to text. And there are some words that trigger other commands in word for example: translate.

This word opens up a new command box and stops the voice dictation.

I read a couple books on the subject of dictation before I ever tried using it myself. They recommend doing daily exercises to help you get used to the awkwardness of talking out loud. The exercise I found most revealing was the one that showed you how fast your pace should be when talking. They give you a couple of paragraphs to read in a time to read in.

Every time I tried it I finished reading it before I was supposed. In other words, to achieve a large word count you actually speak fairly slowly. And you tend to talk in small chunks that are easy for the software to decipher.

Once you get into the rhythm it starts to feel natural. Your brain uses the pauses to think about what to say next. In these pauses are only a second or two, sometimes shorter. It took me many tries to read the text slow enough to match the time the author suggested it should take to read it.

I thought that was a very effective way to break the myth that you need to speak quickly in order to write a lot of words.

One of these books was called Write 5000 words per hour. In this book the author claimed to be able to write up to 5000 words per hour and did so regularly. In fact, he claimed that that was how he wrote all of his novels. He no longer typed because dictation had made him so prolific. Of course he did not happen overnight. It took many weeks of practice if not months to get good at this new skill.

I’m not sure if I could get up to 5000 words per hour but even getting to 2000 words per hour, would be a massive improvement. In the last 15 minutes, I was able to get 500 words written which is typically two times faster than if I was typing. I feel like the more I do this the easier it gets.

Of course, one of the problems with writing a 6000-word blog post without a specific subject in mind, is that you eventually run out of things to talk about. The challenge now is not so much about if I can write, but what will I write about. But even sitting here, doing this little experiment in the middle of the night, sitting in my car, it’s hard not to see the benefit of dictation.

If I were smart man, I would try to run experiments like writing a 2000-word short story from scratch using only dictation. The cost to me would only be one to two hours of my time and maybe a slightly scratchy throat.

I was hoping to mount the roof rack onto the car this evening but having to stop for gas on the way home and having no energy I decided to do it tomorrow or Friday.

As I sit here in my car, the neighbour whose car Robyn hit backing out of our driveway just pulled up and parked in the same spot where I got hit. I truly don’t understand why they keep parking there when they live many houses down the street.

I have noticed many of my Indian neighbours, when they have guests, they never park in front of the house they’re going to. Not sure if this is some form of respect, leaving the room for the elderly to park closer for example. But this family is Lebanese, yet their guests also park anywhere but in front of the house they’re going to. I would really like to know if this is a cultural thing. The other thought that crossed my mind, was that because our house is the centre of the street people naturally park there. I may never know the answer because is not the type of question I am likely to ask any of my neighbours.

It’s 11:55 PM and I have only 300 more words to write and five minutes to go before midnight. I’m not going to make the goal set out to achieve, but boy, did I get close. I certainly will be staying up till 1 o’clock in the morning tonight and that’s all thanks to the power of dictation.

You can’t imagine what a relief it is to go to bed even 20 minutes earlier. Every second of sleep counts right now for me. Any edge I can give myself allows me to achieve things I thought possible. It wasn’t so long ago, that the idea of writing a 6000 word blog then evening was something I thought I would ever be able to achieve. It still blows my mind every time I do it, even though it is not supposed to be happening. It’s only happening because I procrastinated earlier in the month.

But now that I have unlocked the power of dictation once again, it would be completely ridiculous not to use it again. A friend of mine wrote most of his book, or at least the first pass using dictation, because his hands were too sore to use a keyboard in his eyes caused him to have migraine headaches. He was able to set up his computer on a large screen TV then pace around the room talking into a USB microphone and write his first draft.

Granted he’s been working on the same novel for over 13 years, so I take any of his advice with great trepidation. But I can’t deny the power dictation has if in large word count is part of your writing goals. Not that I plan on ignoring all the other aspects of writing.

But wouldn’t you know it it’s 11:59 PM and I just crossed the threshold of completing tonight’s blog. I’ve written 5843 words today. The majority of those were typed over a period of hours, but the last 1500 to 2000 words were typed by a computer.

I have to say I’m very surprised that at the end I was able to get the numbers I wanted using dictation. He may have started off slower than I liked, but in the end the speed came with practice and comfort.

Until tomorrow.